David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

The moon represents what I seek, but words are all I can offer now

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I’m driven tonight by a restlessness which has no name.

I’m looking for something, but I can’t remember what I’m looking for. I’m trying to fill a hole, but I can’t look into the hole to see what’s missing. There’s something priceless which is almost within my grasp, but it disappears when I turn to take it as my own.

As I left dinner, I couldn’t bring myself to go home. Whatever I needed — whatever I was looking for on this restless night — was not there. I was hungry, but it wasn’t for food. I was thirsty, but it wasn’t for water or any drink.

My soul was crying out in a silent scream which I couldn’t put into words but which overwhelmed me like a storm on the inside trying to break out of my raging heart.

I drove north on a small two-lane road out into the country. There were a few houses but no other signs of development. Everything was dark except for my headlights and the bright full moon above me.

And like an ancient sailor who was driven by the wails of sirens he couldn’t resist, I wanted to reach out for the moon. Surely what I seek must be there.

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How could a stranger at sunset possibly know what I had to say?

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I was so absorbed in the colorful light show in the sky above me that I didn’t notice when a stranger walked up.

“It’s a different work of art every night, isn’t it?” the man asked. And I was startled to realize he was standing about six feet from me, watching the same majestic sunset with the same awe which it inspires in me.

People rarely join me on this hill at sunset. It’s in the middle of an old cemetery, so I guess I’m accustomed to being surrounded by dead people — but they never speak.

“I didn’t hear you walk up,” I said to the stranger. And then we chatted about the beauty in front of us and how it was surprising that so few people paid attention. I reached out to shake his hand and I introduced myself.

“Oh, I know you,” he said. “I’ve been up here with you before. I’m Darryl. I was with you a few months ago when it was so colorful around the water tower.”

I pulled out my iPhone and showed him my Instagram feed. He spotted the picture from July 8 and pointed to it.

“I was here that night,” he said.

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Shock of seeing ‘Airplane!’ was realizing that I wasn’t all alone

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Watching “Airplane!” for the very first time was an emotional experience for me. It was the first time in my life when I realized there were other people whose inner thoughts were just as strange as mine.

All at once, I didn’t feel so alone in the world.

It was the Christmas break of my sophomore year. I was home from Tuscaloosa, where I was a student at the University of Alabama. I had been away from home in the college world for long enough to be disappointed to realize that college students weren’t much different from the kids I’d gone to high school with. I was feeling a little lost in the world to realize I hadn’t really found “my people” in college.

I was bored and restless when I flipped on the television that afternoon. As I flipped through channels, I came across a movie that was just starting. I saw clouds and then I heard the melody of the theme from “Jaws.” There was the tail fin of an airplane instead of a shark.

The airplane dramatically burst onto the screen and I burst out laughing. This felt like humor from a kindred spirit. The next 90 minutes would change me.

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