The Summer of Emergence

Watching Red Hook disappear underneath clouds and the wings of this prop plane, its with a smile I put on my headphones and cue up Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma”, my jam of the week and my soundtrack out of Jersey.

It’s been a full and instructive trip to New Jersey, the kind of trip that catches me by surprise. Life is full of expectations and I expected a lot from my return to my cultural home. It was a kind of homecoming and sanctuary amidst the summer in Europe and the upcoming trip to Mumbai.

Jersey a sanctuary? Yeah yeah, laugh it up. For all the haters out there, I’m a robust Jersey-phile, always have been and graciously thank the place for being the fertile ground where I have built friendships, played summer baseball, shucked the world’s best corn and lived the majority of my childhood. So Jersey is my sanctuary. It’s my gamehendge.

My expectations for this 3-week romp were significant. I was to be a groomsmen in one of my best friend’s wedding. I was organizing a band. I had a fantasy football team to draft. It would be fun, full of friends, full of nonsense and depth at the same time. But one idea kept coming to mind through it all.

I’ve called this the summer of transition. It’s the summer of emergence. The summer where I could see that my life was moving in flow with so many of my friends. Stretching into new territory. Traversing terrain of marriage, new children, new relationships starting and old ones ending. People leaving jobs to travel, people leaving travel to new jobs. New recordings and writings. Reaffirming what’s good, restoring its luster and reestablishing its value. Trying new ways to make things fresh. Letting go of the stale and outdated models.

Emergence. That which breaks through the old. The arrival. Like the well, tapped for the first time, releasing the pure water so long stored underneath. The land just needed to be worked. The well needed to be dug. The digging is hard work, but the reward great.

I’ve had the pleasure of digging common wells with so many this summer. The kind where you go in with somebody, get dirty, work hard. You yell at each other. You curse the ground from time to time. You take a break and sip tea together. You give pats on the back and give encouragement. You show up when the other can’t go and they pick you up when you fall. You work together.

And when the water arrives, it’s the signal of the new. A signal of possibility. The refreshing flow of emergence.