Nothing excites me more than a good climax. Do you know what I mean? A spinning in the air of this or that, good or bad, life or death. It's in every good song and book. It's in the crazy moments of our lives...that in-between moment where your world churns with choices and decisions that have been made or need to be made.
One of my favorite songs by Coldplay demonstrates this. It's called "Fix You." It starts out so mellow...hardly any instrumental parts, just a keyboard and his voice singing, "When you try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want but not what you need. When you feel so tired but you can't sleep, stuck in reverse." Then the keyboard gets more pronounced. Slowly more instruments creep in. Second verse more instruments come in and the second chorus is louder.
And then it starts. The guitar comes in and builds and builds and builds until finally the drums ring out in full force. His voice is loudest in this moment and it's in a higher pitch...It's almost frantic as he sings, "Tears stream...down your face...when you lose something you cannot replace. Tears stream down your face and AaahaaaahaaaahaaaahaaAAAAAAAaaaaah...." It's a glorious moment when I turn the radio up three times as loud and sing along with all my soul.
Fix You Video
It's unbelievable how that one moment in that one song can make me think of so many climatic moments in my life. One in particular comes to mind. Last summer I went with some friends to a place called the sinks. There was a 15ish foot cliff there that you could jump off into the water. While all of my friends did not think twice about jumping and just leaped off the edge, it took me an entire hour to muster up the courage. Finally, with my friend Tori standing beside me and promising to jump, I decided I was going to do it. I was going to jump on three.
One...two...three...
The climax.
(That crazy moment when I knew I had decided and I wasn't looking back. That split second after "three" when my tip-toes were still barely touching the ground. That feeling in my stomach like a million butterflies were flying around inside. That moment of insanity, when your brain stops asking questions and goes into panic mode. There's no turning back...)
The climax.
Romeo raises the knife. Elizabeth reaches for Mr. Darcy's hand. Oedipus finds out the truth. A hopeful mother gasps as she sees the first hairs of Shadow's head top the hill. A warrior poet yells, "FREEDOM!" A plane is seconds away from crashing into the World Trade Center. A soldier raises the hammer to drive the nail into his hands. "Yes."
Life isn't life without the climaxes.
