I sensed that spring, summer, fall and winter had past me by. The seasons as a whole were no more in this place.
By my perspective nothing had changed. It was a feeling of longing. And it was a trap I had to avoid.
The journey had been so many different things. And it was the answers that were the prison. I needed to grasp that. Yet I fought it.
A blur at times, some flesh, some sounds, a few images and the pitter patter of kittens running over the furniture and then sleeping on my lap. I drove for so many miles into the abyss. What did I choose that route?
The temperature had changed numerous times. The heat and the cold seemed to be the same thing in retrospect, it was more about what words I used to explain the situation that seemed inconsistent.
I had become accustomed to chaos and liked it a great deal.
Was any of this real?
Perhaps the finality of my earthly passing was haunting me. I don’t know.
And, suspect I never would.
In a way, I was at peace with that, and fighting it the entire time.
I had not moved from the root of this eternally large tree that the holy man motioned for me to sit so long ago.
It was peace and tranquility. It was if I was living in a Herman Hesse book.
At times I couldn’t tell if he was with me or not, and I think that was by design. As for it being his design or another’s, I won’t ever know. And honestly, it doesn’t matter.
I had been traveling to so many places. Some real and some not so much.
The snow and ice of the altitudes in Colorado and Wyoming I didn’t know existed. To the red and orange deserts of Utah and Arizona. On a lake in Kalispell Montana. And eventually to the pit of Las Vegas and all the pleasures it used to bring.
Thousands of miles and many, many lifetimes ago. And that was no more.
I was on an island now and there was no escaping it.
It was like being lost but being able to retrace your steps.
None of that made sense.
I was over thinking.
Why do I do that?
He had not spoken in more than a year in terms that the living would understand. But that was not me. It was not this time and this place.
I forget so many things. I have glimpses of anger and of passion and of betrayal and of wonder. And now they were only glimpses. I used to call this living with Polaroid memories. The kids today won’t get that reference.
For moments the sounds of Ramin Djawadi would echo in my thoughts. So much drama. And so many memories. The diversity of emotion would fill my soul. I saw The Glen and it evaporated for me and so many others.
I knew nothing more and nothing less than when I arrived here.
Oblivion was sublime and a release from the pain of wanting; and of desire.
As it turns out, agony is born of that.
And, in its own way it was really boring.
I had to laugh at that thought.
So after 50 years on the earth I finally meet the closest thing to the Buddha that probably exists and a part of me was bored.
How was that possible?
I used to want to climb Mount Everest and walk the El Camino in Spain or watch the northern lights in Iceland. And when finally faced with the enlightened one I had a thought of being too busy or preoccupied to pay attention to the wisdom.
Perhaps social media had been the demon I couldn’t face all along. And it had drained more of me than I had realized was possible.
Or it was just me and the cumulative years of shitty decisions. It was always easier to blame someone else.
What was my other option, posting pictures of food on the insta-book and throwing in a hashtag to highlight how impressive my mashed potatoes were?
That was never me.
I had fallen for thousands of lifetimes and back to a place of questions; the juxtaposition of decisions was in front of me, metaphorically speaking and I was thinking about mashed potatoes.
The Holy Man did not move. He was eternal and I was not.
In a way I suspect his lesson was indirectly telling me to shut the fuck up and not say another world.
And that alone was hysterical.
Perhaps as a way of letting me know I was thinking too much, it started to rain in the grove of the Holy Man.
How do you laugh at the sense of irony; unless it was your wedding day. But that’s another story.
I had dreams and I had nightmares, but I still believed there was something out there.
In those thousand lives I lost in order to be here I felt comfort. I had to be in that moment; regardless of how long it actually existed.
To purge myself from the thoughts of those that want and need and so many other things.
Out loud I uttered a word “Stop”.
And I heard myself in this new world for the first time as if that word belonged to this place.
It was a key to a door that didn’t exist.
Simply put, ‘stop’ That was it.
I could still believe. I could have those dreams and those nightmares. But the lesson for that moment was simple.
And then stop, and let them go.
I don’t know how good I would get at this but the point was made.
The Holy Man never said a word about it.
And in the next breath I was closer to it all. Closer to the nothing I yearned for.
I felt I was in Lake Tahoe on that small pier looking back at the beach and it was 40 years prior.
It was staring to make sense.
Then he opened his eyes to glance at me.
I would swear there was a smile.
