Just another soldier on the road to nowhere...

I went for a walk tonight. After work, on my way home, I drove over to the bike path here in Morgan Hill. It's nice. Just remote enough to make you think you've escaped civilization, but enough traffic noise from the freeway to remind you that civilization's just around the corner. People go out there to jog, ride their bike or their horse, walk their dog or their kids, or whatever. I go to think.

Or... not exactly think. More like set my mind free from thinking. Let it wander as I wander. I love to do this on a beach as well--that's the best place--but that's a little farther away. Lacking an ocean and a sea strand, I take the path.

There is such a wondrous release of tension when I do this. Why don't I do this more often? Sheer laziness or the curse of modern existence? I walk until the sun slips behind the horizon, then turn and walk back in the gathering dusk. The air gets peculiar this time of the evening; I would swear that it turns a color all its own. The mosquitoes gather in a cloud above my head; they are as irritating as my thoughts.

Who am I in this moment? Am I Odysseus, traveling back from the wars in Troy these 20 years?... Troy is burning; Troy is always burning... Am I Penelope, tirelessly weaving and unweaving, endlessly waiting, eternally patient?... Am I Circe, or the Sirens, powerful, seductive, cruel?...

I am having a Skywalker moment. The sunset is setting the sky on fire, and the shadows are creeping in from the east, and I wonder why I do not have more sunrises and sunsets in my life. And I can hear Yoda's accusations in my mind: All your life you've looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never your mind on where you are, what you are doing. Adventure! Excitement! A Jedi craves not these things.

Do not let this calm exterior fool you. I crave these things. I am no Jedi.


Current mood: pensive
Current music: Damien Rice O