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.

aeka at 8:38 a.m.