Into….

There’s something about the unknown. It’s an all-consuming thing, I think. The unknown can steal a moment right out from under you. It leaves you. Hovering. The moment before you free-fall. The moment before you lose all grounding sense of place.

The problem is, you know. You know you have a moment before you fall. A moment to create one million possibilities for what’s coming next. A moment to believe in everything and nothing, all at once.

Then suddenly everything you know and everything you’ve imagined ceases to exist. Your brave soul trembles and bounces like a swing left alone in the wind. You close your eyes, waiting to open them until you are sure it will be pure sunlight that greets you.

A story of reinvented adventures…..

We were never any good at planning. Really. We could barely get ourselves out the door for school every morning. A camping trip? Ha ha. A back packing trip? Bound to be a figment of our imagination. But this summer was going to be different. We had a plan to drive across the country and camp on islands off the coast of California, backpacking the final miles to our destination. 

I’ve never seen us plan so much for anything. Maps, sleeping bags, ginormous backpacks, flashlights, bottled water, even a cooler packed with snacks, treats and meal fixings. It wasn’t bad food either. Power bars, granola bars, fruit. All packed. No pre-trip sampling allowed. As tempted as I was, I obeyed and kept my distance from the food and instead rolled up clothes to shove into my backpack. 

My mom and sister were on their way to a funeral, a friends daughter. They promised to return in time to finish packing and be ready to hit the road in the morning. But of course, the more something is planned, the more easily it can become unraveled.

Upon returning from the funeral, their path was deterred by a phone call regarding a dear friend who had become ill. His family out of town, my mother and sister rushed to his house and drove him to the hospital. They remained by his side as he crawled his way towards both death and a new lightness of being beyond this earth. 

At home my sister and I waited for any news as the night grew late. We crawled into my mother’s bed, whispering to our dogs, sending hopeful prayers in return for restless sleep. We awoke at three a.m. to the news that our friend had passed. Hours later my mother and oldest sister arrived back at the house. We spoke in hushed voices about the details. Leaving plans for our trip far behind us. 

The four of us curled up on the full size bed, trying to grasp what was left of the night for sleep. We woke early. Hungry, tired, grieving. We pulled granola bars out of the perfectly packed cooled and retrieved our clothes from our backpacks. We said goodbye to our adventure and settled in the car headed for breakfast. 

Over a restaurant table and coffee the details of the night were told and retold . With every retelling the events coming from foggy fatigue into reality. Our backpacking trip became a walk around the park, our camping trio became napping on the sofa and our Fourth of July became fireworks instead of wilderness. The stony silence of a funeral instead of the whisper of a forrest. 

In some ways the unexpected kept us from what I suspect might have been a disastrous venture. The trip has never been re-planned over the years. As though we traded in our planning for more comfortable and less planned ventures, without the need for backpacks, but occasionally the need for tents. 

 

“Love your solitude and bear with sweet-sounding lamentation the suffering it causes you. For those who are near you are far, you say, and that shows it is beginning to grow wide about you. And when what is near you is far, then your distance is already among the stars and very large; rejoice in your growth” -Rilke

Empty Influx

You know those moments when you just want to have contact with someone? To have a conversation with someone you haven’t heard from in a while, just to see how they are, hear about their life and their random musings And in turn to share the current moment of your life; what you made for breakfast, what anticipations you have for tomorrow, what random thoughts have been sifting their way through your brainwaves all week. It’s like all of a sudden you are in need of a sounding boar, a shape to give new insight and respond to the constant influx of thoughts. New information. New perspective.

When did I stop having people to contact? When did the people in my life become clearly separated into school and family. The people I go to school with are whom I discuss academics and future planning with. They are logical barriers who I can compare my academic self with. But they do not enter new information into my existence, they corroborate what I already know of my education. As for my family, they are the people I listen to, the people I share my dailiy trials and tribulations with. We all have a familiar pattern of neccessary discussion that always leads back to the same sound track. I love you. I’m here for you. You can do it.

How did I run out of categories for the people in my life so quickly? I don’t pride myself on having spontaneous conversation, the conversation in which I partake almost always contains a clear purpose, a problem to be fixed, a task to be accomplished. How did I just now realize the fallacy of this plan? How sad that makes the resonance of my life feel sometimes. People are constantly on the influx into or out of my life, I have learned to make that influx passive, never acting against the necessary, rarely making the effort to call back the important interactions to form something more long lasting. This process has always seemed to work in the past. However, at this very moment, I am questioning whether I should have made an effort to maintain the ties I previously have held with so many in the past. How is it that I have come to a rather empty feeling influx at this moment? I thought I was immune to loneliness.