I
just sat there in my car for for a while, head down. I had ten
minutes to go before I needed to start on another ten-minute walk
from the parking lot to my destination, my job, but didn’t feel
like bothering. I expected I would...but why? Was there any point? In
anything?
I'd
reached a place where I didn’t want to be, not physically but
emotionally. There was trouble, and I had no idea what to do about
it. I hadn’t lost anything, at least, not recently, but the
foreseeable future didn’t bode well at all. After weeks of brooding
about all of it, it seemed like a tipping point had been reached. It
seemed as though I was about to lose control of, well, just about
everything.
And
I was all but certain that I just couldn’t do it.
Do
what?
Go
on. Continue.
I’m
well aware that sounds serious. It was.
For
a Monday, the parking was unusually sparse. I've always tried to get
the particular parking space I was in, and I couldn’t exactly say
why, except that I prefer it. My hand covered my forehead and my eyes
as I slowly shook my head. When I finally took my hand away and
raised my head and my gaze, I beheld again the scene that now appears
with this piece. The photo was taken with a phone camera more than a
year ago; the view had just struck me as being picturesque. But
suddenly, it was quite a bit more than that, as I considered what I
was seeing.
Work
was to my back, and the rising hill before me blocked the view of
some unknown area beyond. I had never walked to the top of the hill
to see whatever there was to see. I don't want to, at least not yet.
It isn't that I'm not curious, it's that I do not wish to remove that
small portion of the unknown from my perception of that scene. I knew
what was behind me, the means of making the living that supports me.
When I leave that place forever, I may exit over that rise, on foot.
I considered quietly, as I began to feel a bit better, life is like
that. It's a process, a journey. We all live through some tough
times, and it's possible that if we knew what was coming, we would be
unwilling to go forward to meet it. But we don't get to know, and
that's key to existence. We dream and hope and plan, knowing that
some things will work out while others won't. No one can knock the
props from beneath us if there are no props. I got out of my car and
stood on the pavement, both feet firmly on the ground. The world may
be moving about me but I'm steady where I stand. I'd done nothing
wrong, it was the things that others have done or will do that had
unsettled me. Yes they had affected my life, and will continue to
affect my life; but like money it isn't everything, by any stretch of
the imagination.
Joie
de vivre. Appreciation of life.
Peace of heart, which eventually should lead to genuine peace of
mind. I turned and headed on toward my workplace.
When
I was a younger man, I used to take off and drive, sometimes for a
full day, traveling aimlessly and with no set destination. I took no
maps along and there was no such thing as GPS. I covered hundreds of
miles and then relied on highway signs to get me to some point closer
to my home, often getting back long after nightfall. The objective
was to learn about my surroundings. How quickly did the landscape
change? How did other people in nearby towns or cities live? What did
their surroundings look like, and how did those places compare to
where I lived? What should I expect from the world, and from my
future?
That
was a long time ago. I've traveled much greater distances, knowing
where I was headed and how and when I would return. I haven't seen
the whole world but I've seen enough to be confident that it's all
there.
But
of course, I don't know what the future holds. I don't know exactly
how I'll live or how I will die. But I'm confident that my place in
the world belongs to me, and that I have a right to it. I'm confident
that if I don't have a single thing to call my own, I will still be
able to move on and to advance over that next rise. Beyond it, I will
find something I've never seen before.
And
isn't it wonderful, not to know what it will be?
When
the next weekend arrives, I'm going for a hike in the countryside.
*****
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