And here's the river

I found this after I wrote the above below. It was written on march 20 at 9:04 PM
Funny how I had the feeling but couldn't find all the words for it until now.
Still, I must have sensed it in the coming.
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It has been a week of storms that have opened into a day full of warmth and rainbows. I have been standing on the edge over a waterfall I was terrified I had to fall down, only to realise that I could just jump into it.

I am in it and it is wonderful.

a deeper metaphor

The past years have been eye-opening. I have seen the sun in a way I never had. I have felt the breeze in a way I never thought possible. I have been forced to accept difficult truths. I have learned more than I thought I could in places I was looking to learn nothing at all. You have shown me the way, and I am gathering my things.

I still don't know exactly where I am headed, but I am heading there all the same.

This road I was hoping would lead into the calm pasture has led into the desert, into the valley, into the wasteland, into the high country where the air grew thin and my mind grew wider and wider and wider. I have been pressed down and spread. I have been pulled and stretched out. I have been turned over and have seen the sky.

I hadn't realised until now that I had forgotten where the sunlight comes from.
Now I see it, feel it, know it is the sun this time. And in the fresh light, this seedling is just showing about the surface of the mud, this flower just budding on the fragile branch.

Anything could happen from here.
We could go anywhere, still.

But we are finding the road that our feet are most pleased to walk along, and we are learning the ways we can't go, and we are seeing the direction of the wind from here, and we are trying to move with it. We can see the river flowing, can hear it moving along the riverbed, over rocks and dirt, flowing down to wherever it goes. And we find that we are better when we walk along it, walk with it, get in every now and again.

I think we'll follow this water, no matter where it goes.
It could go anywhere because it goes everywhere and touches everything.
This river is only one part of it and it has led us this far.
However it gets to the ocean is the road we will go.

And one day, we'll smell the sea.

desertland

The blank page, the white space, the empty void disturbs me. It feels like climbing up an escalator that's doing down faster than I can climb. Or like running against a wind that's too pulling too hard. Or like climbing up a mountain past the atmosphere line where I could still breathe air.

But, it's the page full of refuse, full of garbage, full of trash that bothers even more. It's then that I could swear I'm not moving at all, that my legs are fused solid. That they are trees growing up from the concrete, that I am a part of the scenery, that I will be in the same place until the earth around me dissolves back into light and void.

I try to accept it or tell myself I'm satisfied with it. Truth is, I'm only avoiding it. Only pretending, playing dress up with it, running from it.

And there is only so far I can run until I slip off the edge, fall from this height, break this back. Only so far that I can bear this load before it crushes me, flattens me, proves to be my demise.

So, when will I stop. When will I rest. When will I find peace.

tonight and on

Have I failed, I wonder. But no-one need answer. The right answer is clear enough. It always is, isn't it. Right there, in front of us. But, we run and run and run from it, as fast as we possibly can.

And we run right back into it.

We just want to feel something real, something tangible, something understandable. But, we have a hard time with the truth. With reality. With what's there. With honesty.

I don't want to know the answers because then I might be excused from asking any further questions. So, we seek the dark when we run, and we stay far enough away from the light that it never really touches us.

We are weak and afraid. I am weak and afraid.
And I have been running from this.

Where I'm getting to, I haven't decided, can't tell, refuse to know. But, all the road signs and maps around here prove to me that this isn't where I want to be getting. But I'm headed there, all the same. And soon, I'll arrive.

I often wonder if the people I've discovered, uncovered, 'created' as it were, aren't better off than I am. But, of course they are. Because their course is always clear, their flaws always apparent, their lives always easy to fix. I can always see into them, into their worlds, into their heads and hopes - and know.

It's me that I can't get my mind around. Can't get my heart around. Can't get this flow around. And so, it overflows around my edges, finds its way in some other place, moves on in a different direction without me. I try to run and catch up, keep up, run along side it, but it's always moving too fast away from me, and I know deep down that the only way I'd stick with it would be to jump back in.

But if I do now, I might not remember how to swim. Because I've been outside the water for so long I've forgotten what the current's like and how deep the bottom falls out and how cold it is inside. And I've forgotten how to swim.

And so, I'm losing it. It's sliding away from me. It's drifting off until it'll be too far away to see, to know, to catch again.

But, for now, it'll be okay. I know this land and this place, these feelings and these fears. And I've come away from them before. And maybe I was in a million little pieces and some of me got left where I'd been and some of me got lost and I never found it again, but I made it all the same.

I wonder what I'll leave, what I'll lose, what I'll never find again this time. Because I know the feeling and I know the way back from here and I know the sacrifice that this land will take from me, whether I'm willing to give it or not. Surviving is the key, and I will do it at all costs.

I know I will.

But I wonder who it'll be who comes out on the other side and I wonder what will still remain of me. I can only wait, as the river drifts away, as the land dries and cracks from the heat, as the fire devours all the dying scrub along the land. I can only wait and see what comes from here because I waited too long to jump in and follow where the water was going. Or maybe I just couldn't comprehend it, couldn't get my mind into it, couldn't ever understand how it was going to flow and flow and flow and one day just flow away from me. Because its all just water moving from here to there in the end, and none of it ever remains for long.

So now, I have only to sit on this rock and wait this one out and see when survival kicks in and gets me out of here. Because I can't fathom what else I might do but stay alive and do what I'll discover is necessary to do.

To be honest, I feel a little broken, already - a little shattered. I know this land is hard and cruel and it will push me on, even when I'm certain I cannot walk. I only hope this time that this desert land doesn't take it all and give nothing in return but callous hands and callous feet and an even darker heart.

Because I don't know what I'll do if it does.

A break from extended fiction

Whatever comes, it will be acceptable.

I have been places I hated and placed I loved. I've done things that were distasteful and bitter, but I have done things that made life worth living. I have been lifted up and tread upon. I have been high and low, off and on, hurt and loved.

And so, whatever this new trial is, whatever this new situation brings, whatever these new changes are - they will be permissable and acceptable to me.

I will walk down this road, wherever it might lead, with a high head. I will acknowledge that the direction of my life is not a one-man boat, is not governed solely by which direction I steer, is not determined only by this self I inhabit.

But that we here are the angels who can help and we are the ones who pray in need of it. That we are the ones who can guide and we are the ones lost to the night.

That we are the ones who control our destinies, not as soul stars, but as galaxies and a universe that all moves together in one direction, in one motion, as one creation.

I cannot guide the river on my own, but I am a part of its flow.
I cannot know my own path, alone, but I am a part of the road.
And I cannot make my life alone, but I am part of the pattern that is being made that the future will try to follow.

So I will be okay as I am only one part, and I will accept that together we will guide this boat, and I will be a part of it no matter where it is we go. For though I may not always like the way or the boat, I cannot leave it all behind. For this current is a part of me, as well, and I must go where it goes. So, together, we must find the way to reach the goals we've set. For we will never reach them all alone.

I hope in the future, we can all find this acceptable and shed these minds of individuality and self-fullness. For we are very, very wrong and we only harm one another when we try to walk on in our own way alone.

happily ever

I feel the wind cold around my eyes, and I know - the storm is coming. I turn to face the wind and see the rain, cold and damp, heading for us faster than we thought it could. It will be here, soon. Too soon.

And, I can close my eyes and know just what's in store. I've been here at least once before. Maybe another me in another life living out another dream, but it was this way, all the same. I know where this road ends.

I only didn't know till now that I was walking it.

Not entirely. I did or felt I did or thought I knew the feeling from time to time. That it was still familiar, still close enough to feel the edges of. To run my fingers over the outlines of the scar lines and remember the feeling of the burn.

From here, for now, I only wonder at which way the wind turns out beyond us. I can't know. I can't see beyond this moment, beyond this point, beyond this sky. I only know that the storm is coming, that the freezing point is on its way. I only know the downpour will be on us soon.

And I am not ready.

I'll try to stand, to brace, to lean against the wind that pushes me away. I'll try to bear, to stay, to cling to the remains of hope that might be left. And I'll try reason and logic and pain and fear and anger.
But when it all fails, I will still be in the storm.

And it will rage until its emotion is spent. And I will remain until my energy is spent. And who I was when the storm began will change, will be someone else when the storm passes. A face I cannot recognize, I life I cannot lead, a dream I cannot dream up, and a logic I cannot know. But somehow, I know, it will be the me that is left. And with that I'll carry on from here.

Here where the disaster in the night is dawning. Where the sirens are sounding and we can only try to run for higher ground. Where the water level is rising, and we can only try to hold on to the land. Where the wind has already been raging, and we can only try to shout above.

I feel it coming, passing above me and beyond me and all around me.
But, I was not ready.
I may never be.

Perhaps, I was not built this way. Perhaps the storm will overtake me. And, I will pass through the air like a vapor becoming a piece of whatever is on the other side.

If you find me then, perhaps, the colors will be a different shade, the heat a lighter color of red, and that world and that life will allow for the things we thought we had.

Or, the vapor is just a part of the air and you will breathe me in until your last breath escapes back into the night while another storm is brooding in another person's sky to test the same tests that we went through, but failed.

Here's the rain

After a few weeks in the high country, in the warm country, in the sunland where the air was fresh and life felt like being alive - it's back to low country, to the cold country, to the deadland where life is lived in sketches and outlines and shadows of forms without ever being realised.

I stand or I sit or I walk around this room, and I wonder what will come.

For today, it is the rain. The drenching downpour that pounds against you, the hail that hurdles from the sky and stings your face, your arms, your eyes. The sirens that catch you off-guard, the wind that whips around your shape, the hurricane you never heard was on its way.

But, after today, I believe we will still be standing. Although huddled together, although frozen and wet, although worried and unassured by the color of the sky. Although our treasures seem further now than they had ever been. Although the world seems darker now than it ever had. Although the night seems harsher now than we ever thought.

I believe we will still be standing here, together. Caught in the same storm, tossed by the same sea, held in the same sway. Watched by the same wind.
And for now, that must be hope enough.

Thoughts and Images

I love it when I learn things from my characters. Because it always initially feels like I've created them, made them, invented them, plucked a bit of stuff from the air about me, stuffed random thoughts and images into a frame and made it walk and dance. But, it never fails: after a time of pushing around paper dolls, someone will come to life and say something that I don't understand or do something that I didn't think made sense, and it will all tumble together in a crash of brilliance and luck.

What is best, however, is when you see that your characters are better at living life properly than you are. I've learned this, recently. And I'm coming to terms with what that means.

I've also learned that when I am interested in a character, I just have to flow with it. Don't move on to someone else because I feel guilty for giving one too much time. Let the time flow, let them express themselves, and see where it leads.

I think writers have to be at least one part crazy. We have to be okay sitting on top of buildings and imaging what it might be like to fall. We have to be okay with looking like we are talking to ourselves, when in fact we are talking to a problem character who won't share his problems with us or what possible resolution he is hoping for. We have to be okay turning blind and bleary eyed from staring into text for too long, trying desperately to see clearly into another world.

But I am learning, slowly, to be a real crazy author. One who can take observed life, take false life, take created life and show the truth, the reality, the realness of it. One who can mold a clay boy who will stand and walk and breathe and live on his own one day. One who can touch the depths of human experience and replicate it for the world to see, touch, taste, and comprehend.

I am learning to be that kind of writer. But learning is slow and difficult. And much is being taken.

So little has been given here where my random thoughts reside. So much has been asked of this blog to rest quietly, patiently, eagerly for those thoughts to become random again and express themselves in the strange shapes and colors of before. To sit by and reflect to itself while I share myself with these new friends, new strangers, new lovers.

And it has agreed to wait for me.
So, I will be back. But I cannot say when.