2004-12-19
The Road Up Ahead
The characters we observe in our everyday lives: the old man walking the small dog and the lady--way past those "golden years"--covered in make-up and waiting...
Winter mornings and afternoons lure me into taking solitary walks and observing these characters--reconstruct their lives with one glance. I guess what it would be like once they get home: the boiling of fragrant tea and the clicking of white, enamel cups.
Yesterday, I awoke to that impenetrable, gray, heavy fog which lingers outside French Windows--knocking and waiting.
Brienne and I had one of those "moments" on the phone. She didn't even have to tell me--I already knew it; thus, her announcing that she's been accepted into Manhattan was almost...superfluous. Of course, she asked why I had not applied early to Rochester, and I felt compelled to tell her. Luckily, a few hours later, I recieved a letter from the University itself, giving me a second chance to apply early--I took it, of course.
I feel that this past year (since Roger, of course) I've been struggling with the painful emergence of a new identity. At times, I sit back and despise Roger and damn him to Hell (that's understandable)...yet, other times I realize that had it not been for the Polish Incident (the name I've given our ordeal), I may not have grown.
Everything has felt like a perpetual struggle--me trying to keep my head above the waters, who so fiendishly try to drown me.
The bottom line is that I never asked to fall in love with Roger--then again, who in their right mind actually wishes to love?
But...these things occur. Life, as it is, is a cold, flowing river. Even if I were to try, I couldn't catch one ripple. I couldn't take hold of the sun's magnificent rays as they strike the water...I'm only there to float with the current.
The strangers that I see: the man with his dog and the lady with the make-up--these people are also leaves. And we'll float aimlessly as puppets or walk through the forest as life-sojourners.
I think that my quest--like all of us--is to form my own undulating ripple. This is why we are life-sojourners: picking up our worn, patched satchels and heading off to the unknown, uncharted road. We kick the pebbles along the way...they land in the stream and form those ripples.