Dark walls, florescent with moisture, rise up over either side. The ceiling is lost in the dank dimness.

Behind us are shadows, yet we move forward. Stopping seems attractive, but we move on, reassuring ourselves that eventually the gloom will give way to light. Unfortunately, even after entire minutes have passed, the dreariness continues to envelope us.

If not for the radiance we are porting, our journey would be one of total blackness. Our personal light, our self-knowledge, and our individual aptitudes, become suddenly very important.

The gap between our origin and our destination increases. There is nothing to note en route except the sameness of the murkiness surrounding us. Our path, which lacks any happy variation, is complete in its disturbing similitude. Not soon enough, we emerge from the tunnel's semblance of walls, seams, floors, and roofs.

As uncomfortable as our trip had been, we likely continue to choose to transverse other poorly lit recesses; doing so allows us to avoid the hazards of mountains and of oceans.  Other types of crossings do not enable us to keep well intact ourselves and our identity-provoking artifacts.

Whereas giant hillocks and seamless seas can be light-filled, providing us with both the freshness of air and with wondrous vistas, such colossal bodies of earth, or of water, can similarly provide us with colossal problems. They can avalanche. They can roil. They can host dangerous beasts or fishes.

If we elect to move across such amorphic bulks, we elect to chance to lose our way or to otherwise be consumed. An unconstrained access to change can bring about the worst type of suffering. In contrast to the frights we encounter when traveling preordained paths, such as tunnels, the dreads associated with true cosmic autonomies, as exemplified by mountains and by oceans, are usually worse for us. 

True, in our personal tunnels, our dark and narrow travel ways through unemployment, sickness, bereavement, legal tangles, relationship breakdowns, and even pettiness among friends, the indifference of those passages' dimensions can make us feel Abandoned. Such a sentiment, though, is misguided; our personal tunnels are a kindness.

If we were not caused to treks through those limited and sometimes terrifying places, but were caused, instead, to be exposed, all at once, to a greater dimension of challenges, we could be permanently ruined. It can be beneficial to transport ourselves not on the most dangerous of roads, but on the least invigorating.

Someday, I would like to walk the Pennsylvania portion of the Appalachian Trail. I've envisioned, too, what it might be like to swim across the sea into England's warmer bays.

For now, though, I am grateful that the Blue Mountain Tunnel helps me drive from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and that I can cross from London to Paris under the Atlantic Ocean.  For now, I commit to heart that the restrictive, overcast times of my life are not punishments, but gentle restorations which also protect me from greater harms when I am most vulnerable. 

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