Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Letters from Nowhere


Sitting on the back of a rusty pick-up truck bound for the highway of life, a lone traveler stares into distant skies with tired eyes. Eyes weary of a long hard life of toil and with nothing to show for it but calloused hands. Unheeding of the howling wind blowing by his face or the promise of yet another storm, he sat there, hunched to his thoughts and unaware of his misery. He fumbles around to regain his composure after a sudden jolt brought about by an imperfection on the road, he came upon a crumpled piece of paper amongst the many litters of trash people just dump on the back of any old truck. To save himself from further gloom he began to read.
     “If there ever was a reason to make a life justifiable it would be for all the right reasons and not just for a sole reason, even if such an idea would seem noble, if not too overly. If there was ever a time to search for a meaning to anything such a time would be, for whatever reason earnest would  deem necessary, be wanting and in need of haste. Too many wonders to seek explanations for and too many questions needing any sort of explanation just to make their time worthwhile in posing.
      And yet here we are, wanting for a liberation from a prison we ourselves do not yet know or are afraid to face. Lost in a daze we scramble to define our existence, not with words or actions or even ideals, but with hopes and aspirations; dreams we are waiting to unfold before our eyes, yet we are paralyzed by the mere notion of their fruition or the taxing commitment they inherently require.
      And then there is our notion of time, or lack of it. Everything revolves around many aspects which define how we live our lives but the painful truth is nothing really revolves. Everything evolves. Time passes and we lose it. Everything changes over time, nothing is eternal. Everything is ethereal. In this wisp of a moment we come to the sad realization that as we die slowly each passing day, we have forgotten how it must have felt to live. To live for a moment’s respite, to live for someone you love, to live for an ideal, to draw strength from the vibrance of this thing called life and drench yourself with its longing; its unquenchable thirst; its energy.
      In silence we hope, and if we remember, we pray. We hold on. We hold on to anything with semblance to substance, to security, to permanence. Even if we had to lie to ourselves to believe, at least long enough  for some sense of resounding half-truths , no matter how falsely or unstately that notion may seem, just so we can put meaning to our actions and gratification to unheeded effort. And still, we come to the point in question…the beginning of something we do not yet know or want to know and the end to something we would rather not ponder upon. The truth is we simply have to learn to let go. To let ourselves dream and bask in the silence of unconditional existence; to not take more than we need and go back to simple living.
      When we filter out the noise hard enough and long enough we can finally listen to the one person we haven’t heard from in a long, long time. Ourself. ”
     “Hey, buddy! Your stop’s just ahead. Let’s get a move on, shall we. Looks like another long night of rain.”, cried the driver. With that our lone traveler hops out of the truck that served as his refuge, at least long enough for him to finally understand. Staring at the blackening sky one last time, and after a long sigh, he forges ahead and the night finally swallows him.
     He smiles knowing that somewhere in this world, under a starry  moonlit sky, a child dreams and Hope is renewed. And with Hope comes Chance; a chance to start all over again, to finally be free, to be alive.
     Unbeknownst to our lone traveler a pick-up driver parks by the roadside somewhere, writes another entry to his journal, tears it off for want of something better to write about, to feel about, to feel alive about, and throws a yet another piece of crumpled paper at the back of the pick-up bed, and heads out. A chance indeed.
        

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