...If I explained it to you, would you really believe it? Would you really understand it?
There I sat with three of my friends on bits of broken stump in a field of grass, a cliff sinking into the water, knuckles pressed to my teeth, staring out over the bay and over the ocean simultaneously, the woods behind and before me, sinking into deeper levels of meaning. Watching the tide roll in. The occasional raptor in the sky, skimming slowly, floating in midair. A tuft of dandelion fuzz float so slowly by it was picturesque, so unreal that it could be called a cartoon.
I can remember everything in clear detail, but so much detail that there aren't enough words to describe it. Golden stalks of grass rolling down the hill in brilliant sunlight shimmer. This must be how birds saw. And I understood everything, the context of journeying far and beyond that of mortal flesh, the beating pulse of this planet, or its rhythm. The cycle of it.
These are the thoughts that drive some people's minds mad. Thoughts best left for when you are dying, when you no longer need your body (or maybe it just all ends, who knows), but certainly not thoughts for the living. What's the point when all the answers are laid out in front of you?
...
A lot of little things, little pieces falling into place. But here I haven't created the mold and am filling in the gaps, finding the missing parts; here I am the mold, and I'm watching pieces find their way to me themselves, revealing a picture I only guessed at.
Having friends roll into town from back east was a reminder that I wasn't doing what I really wanted; wants aside, my needs cycle with the seasons; and why isn't it okay to need to see more, refine past definitions of people and places at some points and have the comfort, closeness of a destination, a home to return to when the need to reflect alone runs predominant? Why is this only reserved for vacations and retirement, when it is just as accessible and real now?
I miss the smell of train grease, and highway sweat, of being out in the open nearly every day and loving every moment of it. Shut in the house, in the office, cut off from the workings of the world--regardless of people--at large?
It is a shame people are so fixated on security, because there only foolproof guarantee of security is being able to rely on yourself in all aspects of reliance, and even then, you can't prevent the storm from blowing.
...And if you could, there is no purpose to your life.
There are things, goals I label together as "art, self-employed, success, financial stability" but really these are as easy to obtain when I want to obtain them, and maybe I'm not ready to get to that point yet and move out to Yosemite, or it would imply having to stay still for a very long time. Simply the "art" will do for now, the rest to inevitably follow.
...
I went back to Yosemite for the first time in five years, and I can say this time I didn't want to leave, ever. It wasn't just beautiful and awe-inspiring; I felt like I was seeing for the first time, absorbing it and letting it absorb me. Mind, part of the trip was family-related, so I felt that my cynicism would have the overwhelming upper hand in the experience.
Not so. I would call it "rejuvenating," but that seems to imply that I'm rapidly deteriorating into a boring adult that needs reminders...no, not so at all. It reaffirmed some possible answers to unspoken questions I had on the choices I've made in life lately, and I feel the calm of knowing that I know better than what I am doing currently, cubicle and city-wise, stationary for the moment. Unspoken answers to questions made out of the fiber of my being, as opposed to of my endless thoughts.
There was the house we stayed in, and a yard for Stonewall to run gleefully through. Gray foxes. Bears. Bike riding when the last time was in Oklahoma, before I destroyed our bikes. And family.
I've just finished rereading the "His Dark Materials" Trilogy by Philip Pullman in anticipation of the Golden Compass movie coming out. Really, I've only read the set once before, and the first book various times. With just seeing and understanding more things in life, I felt like this time I really understood what was being addressed in the books.
I don't believe in angels. But by the way they are defined, humans are pretty ungratefully lucky to have mortal flesh, to understand and enjoy earthly delights. Too entirely ungrateful of what they were simply born with.
There were other themes that attracted me, including the idea of one's being returning to the rest of the world. Which is, unarguably, true. That's where our atoms go. Back where they came from. Always decomposing and recomposing and being used as nutrients...I know it's not legal, but if I could I'd want my dead body to be placed back in the woods for the carrion eaters and bugs to return me to the earth. I'd rather have my atoms floating around in the mountains when I go, not stuck in a dirt patch within a city. No, no, never.
It's suddenly so clear what I can do, and what I will do.
There I sat with three of my friends on bits of broken stump in a field of grass, a cliff sinking into the water, knuckles pressed to my teeth, staring out over the bay and over the ocean simultaneously, the woods behind and before me, sinking into deeper levels of meaning. Watching the tide roll in. The occasional raptor in the sky, skimming slowly, floating in midair. A tuft of dandelion fuzz float so slowly by it was picturesque, so unreal that it could be called a cartoon.
I can remember everything in clear detail, but so much detail that there aren't enough words to describe it. Golden stalks of grass rolling down the hill in brilliant sunlight shimmer. This must be how birds saw. And I understood everything, the context of journeying far and beyond that of mortal flesh, the beating pulse of this planet, or its rhythm. The cycle of it.
These are the thoughts that drive some people's minds mad. Thoughts best left for when you are dying, when you no longer need your body (or maybe it just all ends, who knows), but certainly not thoughts for the living. What's the point when all the answers are laid out in front of you?
...
A lot of little things, little pieces falling into place. But here I haven't created the mold and am filling in the gaps, finding the missing parts; here I am the mold, and I'm watching pieces find their way to me themselves, revealing a picture I only guessed at.
Having friends roll into town from back east was a reminder that I wasn't doing what I really wanted; wants aside, my needs cycle with the seasons; and why isn't it okay to need to see more, refine past definitions of people and places at some points and have the comfort, closeness of a destination, a home to return to when the need to reflect alone runs predominant? Why is this only reserved for vacations and retirement, when it is just as accessible and real now?
I miss the smell of train grease, and highway sweat, of being out in the open nearly every day and loving every moment of it. Shut in the house, in the office, cut off from the workings of the world--regardless of people--at large?
It is a shame people are so fixated on security, because there only foolproof guarantee of security is being able to rely on yourself in all aspects of reliance, and even then, you can't prevent the storm from blowing.
...And if you could, there is no purpose to your life.
There are things, goals I label together as "art, self-employed, success, financial stability" but really these are as easy to obtain when I want to obtain them, and maybe I'm not ready to get to that point yet and move out to Yosemite, or it would imply having to stay still for a very long time. Simply the "art" will do for now, the rest to inevitably follow.
...
I went back to Yosemite for the first time in five years, and I can say this time I didn't want to leave, ever. It wasn't just beautiful and awe-inspiring; I felt like I was seeing for the first time, absorbing it and letting it absorb me. Mind, part of the trip was family-related, so I felt that my cynicism would have the overwhelming upper hand in the experience.
Not so. I would call it "rejuvenating," but that seems to imply that I'm rapidly deteriorating into a boring adult that needs reminders...no, not so at all. It reaffirmed some possible answers to unspoken questions I had on the choices I've made in life lately, and I feel the calm of knowing that I know better than what I am doing currently, cubicle and city-wise, stationary for the moment. Unspoken answers to questions made out of the fiber of my being, as opposed to of my endless thoughts.
There was the house we stayed in, and a yard for Stonewall to run gleefully through. Gray foxes. Bears. Bike riding when the last time was in Oklahoma, before I destroyed our bikes. And family.
I've just finished rereading the "His Dark Materials" Trilogy by Philip Pullman in anticipation of the Golden Compass movie coming out. Really, I've only read the set once before, and the first book various times. With just seeing and understanding more things in life, I felt like this time I really understood what was being addressed in the books.
I don't believe in angels. But by the way they are defined, humans are pretty ungratefully lucky to have mortal flesh, to understand and enjoy earthly delights. Too entirely ungrateful of what they were simply born with.
There were other themes that attracted me, including the idea of one's being returning to the rest of the world. Which is, unarguably, true. That's where our atoms go. Back where they came from. Always decomposing and recomposing and being used as nutrients...I know it's not legal, but if I could I'd want my dead body to be placed back in the woods for the carrion eaters and bugs to return me to the earth. I'd rather have my atoms floating around in the mountains when I go, not stuck in a dirt patch within a city. No, no, never.
It's suddenly so clear what I can do, and what I will do.