I Maintain

“There's no place to run and no gasoline.”

Stuck, this world sometimes feels like it's stuck, but I'm still moving.

Sometimes I float through this world, watching it all go mad.

I've found my peace again. Quiet and sure, together my peace and I, we walk through this place, holding hands.

Perception is reality, they say.

When the world shakes, and everything is a blur, I choose to believe that I remain the same—that the world shakes around me. No longer am I shaken. A Copernicum Shift.

Sometimes you can slip between the sheets of reality and surreality and come out on the other side not knowing the difference. It's like walking through a hall of mirrors, seeing versions of yourself in grotesque extremes, but in the end, your reflections return to you, and you exit as you entered; one single, whole man.

Reflecting. . .

Several things have affected my perspective, lately.

Mortality and death have been walking around me, whispering to me that life has an uncertain end.

It's alright, my peace is not so weak.

I maintain.

Running through Oregonion hills, I happen into a frontier cemetery, the lineage of families etched in stone. Moss and trees try to hide these souls from our world, but if you slow down as I did, you can commune among the voiceless names. Stories are told in dates and names. The adversity of frontier life evident for anyone to see, so long as they can sympathize with the dead.

Most men died in their fifties and sixties. Several men died younger. One was my age. He was middle aged by the standards of the era.

Time passes.

The news comes that my cousin-in-law's brother was struck on the side of the road. He is a year older than I. I knew him. He had a family. He was not an old man by contemporary standards. To use a qualifier, he “should” have had much more time on this earth. He was a good man.

My grandfather passed away last month. My father's father.

Families are ephemeral entities, floating through time, usually no more than three generations at a time. We try to outrun our mortality by lighting new fires, but death is behind us, poised to extinguish any fire before its cold wind.

Sometimes, a family will fall behind, and death will overcome it. They fall into history. Dates and names.

You only know where half-way is once you've finished your journey. There are absolutes like young and old, but the promise of a future is false—albeit necessary to acknowledge its possibility. The outer edges are concrete. I know I began my journey 28 years ago, and it won't go further than a humanly possible 120 years (although it's much more likely to be half of that). Everything in between is an unknown.

I have an uncanny ability to forecast the future, and an even more extraordinary ability to ignore my own prophecy when it flies in the face of my desires. I'm coming to terms with accepting things that I wish weren't true. It's a process. I've been losing my innocence. No longer an innocent, I cannot deny the realities I live in. My reality, your reality, our reality. There is a place where they all meet, and that line gets pushed one way or another depending on the will of those involved.

I have passed beyond my youth and youthful outlook. Ages are arbitrary, and the experiences associated with particular ages are approximate. Regardless of my vintage, I am no longer a “young man.” For some the turning of that page comes earlier in life, for others, it never arrives.

It's okay to acknowledge the possibility of a future, and to prepare for it, but to live for the future may be a costly error. With nothing guaranteed, I'm more inclined to seize my goals, those that are immediately obtainable.

This far in, I cannot say that the pain and disappointment I've experienced has been worth the highs. If I died tonight, I'd come out of it with a negative balance. Red ink.

It will take concerted and determined effort to reverse my fortunes. It will take time—time I am not guaranteed.

Yet, I will try. For now, I have decided to do what I can. That is all that I can do.

For some time, depending on my progress, I will still be at a net loss. Eventually, I may reach a tipping point, where I am back to positive. I was there a year ago. It had been a long road there. I lost ground, though, and I have twice as much ground to make up now.

Current Events

I am both proud and disappointed in myself for working 5 weeks straight. 35 days straight without a day off. I'm putting it all into the moment, trying not to think too hard. The distraction of work is welcome.

I started playing guitar. I learned chords ten years ago, but never learned a song. My mom mailed my guitar to me for Christmas (thanks, Mom!), and I picked it up last month. I haven't put it down since.

To be sure, in the future I will be sharing my progress as I become more proficient and capable of expressing myself with this instrument.

Time is passing. I came in spring, I watched the mountains thaw their doors and invite us humans to play at their feet and to dance on their heads. I watched the green grasses grow golden, verdant hills turn to rolling gold fields.

The skies ignite, up here in the town of Auburn. The clouds huddle around a dying sun in the evenings, seeking warmth, and they almost catch fire, but so often, the sun goes to sleep before the clouds have fully begun to burn.

The spectacle of the chilly clouds and the dying ember of the sun is something I will remember well from my time here.

The mountains are preparing to close their doors, though. To me at least. I don't want to play in their snow. I want to see new things, and I will move on when the time is right.

The future is possible, but it is not guaranteed to me. Yet, I look to the horizon.