Chasing the Shade

Method for coping with Atlanta summers as a runner:

1. Start in the shade
2. Follow all shady sidewalks
3. Dodge sunny spots
4. When you hit half your mileage goal, turn around
5. Follow shady sidewalks back home
6. If all else fails, escape to a shady oasis of trails. The drive is worth it.

The shade-chasing method must be followed from April through October. It’s a rough 7 months. I’ve heard some people actually enjoy the feeling of scorching heat on their skin; I don’t understand.

The persistence and intensity of southern summer heat never gets easier for me to manage. I remember growing up as a kid in Tennessee laying on the living room floor under the ceiling fan asking myself how I did this last year. These days in Atlanta I feel like I may be suffocating. The heat is so harsh. It’s incompatible with life. Inhospitable to flourishing.

My entire exile in Atlanta, so far 3 years, has been one long summer.

It has been a time of heat, a draining of my resources, a drying of streams of water. It has provided limited deep friendships, few meaningful tasks, and an abundance of ways to feel insignificant. It has seemed incompatible with life and inhospitable to flourishing. It’s mean, really; almost cruel, since I came here with so much hope.

And yet somewhere in the middle, the biggest blessing of my life showed up dressed in Vans and a hat. Like shade on a summer day. Life-giving.

So I ask myself, where is the shade? In what ways can I chase the shade, and where is it taking me? Where are the barely-helpful-but-oh-so-helpful shady spots in this long summer sun?

My heart is pulled so strongly to Colorado. I can’t be sure of this, but I have a feeling God works by pulling our hearts toward the shade. He is a life-giving Spirit desiring and working for our flourishing, and that doesn’t mean life will be enjoyable or easy, but it means he’s on the side of our greatest desires. Maybe my desire for the coolness and crispness of the mountains is pulling me toward relief in more than one way.

Or maybe I’ll follow the shade of my career, which if it ever begins will bring my spirit back to life a little bit. Doing ethics in a professional capacity is something I’m motivated enough to strain for, even if it’s hard and even if I fail. It’s the dream I would always regret not chasing. It’s shade to me. Or actually, it’s like moving to an entirely cooler climate.

And maybe I’ll do some more of the things that deepen my breathing, like slow yoga, long hikes, Whole Foods excursions, coffee dates. Seeing live music, walking in Kirkwood, growing small plants, climbing good trees. The “ahhhhh” things. The shady spots. The climate may not change, but there will often be breezes to find, or rain showers.

I guess what I’m trying to learn in this season is how to hold two things in tension: enduring the heat of hard times, and going where the wind blows. Remaining and abiding under pressure, while being open to the shifting and moving Spirit calling me onto cooler climates. It takes a lot of discernment to know when to stay and when to go, especially when you have to do both at the same time. Maybe you stay in Atlanta but take the leap and marry your best person. How’s that for staying in the heat but chasing the shade?

Or maybe you stay in your part-time jobs but start networking and applying for things that make your heart beat fast. Maybe you push through the long days but call your best friend on the way home. Maybe you stay in your old apartment but put pretty things on the walls.

Maybe you just keep the dream alive even when it doesn’t look good. Keep looking for jobs in Colorado, for instance. You never know when the time will be right, when the leaves will start to change and float down, when the crisp fall air will come and heal you.