Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
I first heard Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy nearly thirty years ago. My heart, scarred by grief and too many losses, sought love like it was the answer to everything I lacked and needed. I loved as though if I held on tightly enough, it wouldn’t leave or slip through my grasp. I didn’t allow love—especially romantic love—space to bloom, to breathe—or become.
I won't fear love
Back then I didn’t have words for the ache I carried, but Sarah McLachlan did. Her music had a way of wrapping itself around my grief like a balm. I could not get enough. The album by the same name, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, with its raw, haunting songs, felt like whispered truths. Each song was like a mirror, showing me parts of myself previously hidden. I’d listen while I took long drives in the countryside, and late at night in the quiet, I would feel something soften. Not quite healing, but an easing of the pain. This album and her Surfacing album soothed my weary heart—feeling like small steps towards healing.
Peace in the struggle
To find peace
Comfort on the way
To comfort
For much of my life it seemed that love had to be earned—to be worthy of it I had to be vigilant, always trying, always seeking and trying to please. I was sure there had to be a right way to love, and if I could just find it, happiness would follow. But time made me aware of a quieter truth: holding tightly to anything yields the opposite of what we seek. Love, like life, needs to be met with openness and the willingness to risk loss. To love and live freely is to expand, to extend beyond one’s comfort zone—to stumble forward—even when the way forward is unclear and the outcome out of our control.
This song in all its quiet, aching beauty, has come to mean different things to me over the years. When I listen to it now, I hear the echoes of the woman I was before and the woman I have become too. In the lyrics I hear all the times I have stretched from my heart toward something I didn’t fully trust, the moments when I was unsure, when I was afraid, and when I let love in even as I braced myself for its eventual loss.
All the fear has left me now. I’m not frightened anymore.
I wish my younger self could have know how true that line would become—not because fear ever truly disappears, but because I have learned that fear does not have to be the thing that stops me. I spent so many years afraid of the unknown, of change, of loving too much or not enough—of being hurt—but I had lived through too much tragedy, heartbreak and loss. And through moments when I thought I had reached the end only to realize it was also another beginning.
Companion to our demons
They will dance and we will play
With chairs, candles, and cloth
Making darkness in the day
It will be easy to look in or out
Upstream or down without a thought
And now I am here, in a body that has carried me through it all, a body and heart that knows what it is to ache and to heal. There is something freeing about being older—knowing that I do not have to prove anything, that I do not have to be anyone other than who I am, even as I continue my undoing and becoming—demons and all.
And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it
I won't fear love
And if I feel a rage, I won't deny it
I won't fear love
There is something about the way she sings, the way her voice carries the words, half-whispered/half-confession. Speaking from some place deep inside herself, she touches a similar place in me.
All the fear has left me now, I’m not frightened anymore.
She sings of yearning and of the fear that so often obscures what we long for. It can feel like fumbling, but not in the way of clumsiness. It is the fumbling born of uncertainty and fear.
And if I shed a tear, I won’t cage it. I won’t fear love.
The song reminds me of the times love has felt the riskiest—a thing to fear, control or avoid. Love is as fragile as a house of cards, and the strongest force there is. Love can carry us through everything we face. And love can destroy us.
To not fear love, or to choose to love despite the fear, is a rebellion. It’s a radical act of opening when our gut tells us to protect, to harden, to run! To love fully is an undoing, a vulnerability, and a willingness to risk seemingly everything.
Love has softened me in ways I never expected. It has broken me open, and in doing so, it has made room for more tenderness, more compassion and understanding—of myself and those I love.
I have loved as a daughter, as a mother, as a lover, as a friend. I have loved deeply, even when it hurt. I have lost people I never imagined living without, and yet, love remains. It shifts, it changes shape, but it never disappears.
When I listen to Fumbling Towards Ecstasy now, I’m reminded of love’s highs and her lowest lows. Love feels complicated, made even more so by my past. I am still moving toward something; still learning how to surrender to love without fear and how to trust that whatever comes next will be enough. There is something beautiful in that.
“Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” All the fear has left me now I'm not frightened anymore It's my heart that pounds beneath my flesh It's my mouth that pushes out this breath And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it I won't fear love And if I feel a rage, I won't deny it I won't fear love Companion to our demons They will dance and we will play With chairs, candles, and cloth Making darkness in the day It will be easy to look in or out Upstream or down without a thought And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it I won't fear love And if I feel a rage, I won't deny it I won't fear love Peace in the struggle To find peace Comfort on the way To comfort And if I shed a tear, I won't cage it I won't fear love And if I feel a rage, I won't deny it I won't fear love I won't fear love I won't fear
"I am still learning how to surrender to love without fear and how to trust that whatever comes next will be enough. There is something beautiful in that." Yes, this. ❤️❤️❤️
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