Observing Nature

A cartoony blue and white poofball sky hang in the background of crisp fall day. Sugar maples drop their harvest leaves like crayola lemmings leaping from a cliff. Obsessive-compulsive salmon throw themselves mindlessly at a fish ladder, flailing upstream to some predestiny, the specifics long forgotten. Old couples wander the sidewalk, dottering arthritic geese. And I sit alone, watching life pass, watching everything die.

The concrete hardly shows its age, but there are laugh lines in the sidewalk. Anglers standly idly waiting for the next unsuspecting fish, watching the mild wind create small swirls of color from the ground near their feet. Those guys have a purpose, they know why they're here. Not me. I'm just here, wondering. Most of the time I have more questions than answers about the world around me, and it doesn't bother me. But today I just sit and think and wait for ephiphany that never comes. I am alone and I don't like it.

Why? I should be fine. I've read much, and thought also, that being alone is good, time to reconnect with something or other... I get vague on the details there. Must not have been a picture book or audio CD. And talking to my friends is entertaining, sometimes enlightening, and always a rewarding diversion, but in the end, it seems to be a diversion from lonliness. So I come back to this question, honestly not sure of the answer: What's so wrong with being alone? Why don't I like it? What is the goal of being with people if I am apparently so reluctant to be by myself right now? I don't know. Maybe that's a cop out. Maybe I do know and would rather not talk about it.

Avoidance is perhaps my least favorite uncoping skill. Its like the credit card bill that swells out of control on interest. I've seen enough of that in my life and would rather not endenture my mind, so I'll ramble at a couple ideas. That quasi- academic layer of examination has always been a better safe-haven. Like a computer in safe-mode, the system processes, but just not everything at once. So perhaps (an excellent, highbrow beginning), we may begin by examining what's gained by being alone. Meditative, contemplative opportunities. Anyone who knows me will laugh to hear that I don't want to think about that. But its true.

Because sitting here and thinking, right now, I see everything ending. The leaves, the fish, the old people, the season itself. Its all dying. The mold spores, the leaf rot, the decaying pumpkins on porches throughout suburbia. Its all ending. And I know there are a million cliches about endings and beginnings and I don't even want to write one.

As a matter of fact, why don't you insert your favorite one right here: _________________________________________________________.

Oh, how true, how true. But I don't want this moment to end. I love it. Its beautiful, every last leaf. Down to the last dottard. I want to absorb every detail and make it last, thinking if I could capture infinite detail in a finite moment, it would still live on forever. I know these moments pass. I know. But I like that concrete with the laugh lines, its there for me. I can count on it being there, although it has little to offer.

Interesting that the cracks come from water. Water and rock are opposites to each other in this polar system. Water runs, rock stands. Rock blocks water, water wears away rock. The water always wins. I want to be like water, not caring where the next moment takes me. Happy to be anywhere, unconcerned with the future because it is what it is. But I'm rock. I bear up under things that sag. I hold until I crack, then I crumble. Rock tries to keep things the same. As they ever have been. But I see where I've been. I've already done that. Some of it was good, but much of it wasn't. I don't want to be this anymore. I am trying to decide to move forward, without regard to future outcome, like water. Rock impersonating water.... like an interpretive dance of accounting and auditing. Still I try. I try to choose this path, like the one guy on the roller-coaster, gritting his teeth while everyone else hoots with joy. Maybe it will be easier with time. So while my friends are a good distraction, I guess its inevitable that I should come to this thought. A choice of who to be. And what to choose... I am alone in that decision.