a piece of a letter i sent to a friend

I've been reading 'Travelling Mercies' by Anne Lamott - she says something very true:
"I'm pretty sure that it is only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way that we come to be healed - which is to say, that we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace."

That ocean of sadness being some sort of grief or brokenness, some sort of cloudiness that glooms life all up.

Reading from a novel by John Steinbeck, I stubbed my toe on this line, then picked it up and pocketed it to glance at it again later:
"A longing caressed him...and he was full of a nameless sorrow."

Then listening to the Gladiator soundtrack, there is a song called "Sorrow" and it got me thinking...

That ocean of sadness, that nameless sorrow for me has not been a specific grief-causing event. It has been for me a realization that life is not rated G or even PG. A realization that life is not about easily resolved conflict. A realization that life is not happy. That realization for me created an ocean of sadness - because I didn't understand why life should not be primarily about happiness. That realization planted in my a nameless sorrow. The beautiful thing is (and I mean beautiful not easy to look at or polished) that in coming to this realization, this naked and immediate experience of sadness I have begun to experience life, I have begun to embrace life to the full. Only, not life to the full in the Care Bear/Disney World sort of way, but life to the full in the streets of Toronto/Requiem for a Dream/grittiness, greys, and colors of life/good news of the gospel of peace/reconciliation/redemption/hope/healing sort of way.

And it is all very heavy, very wonderful.