Sunday, June 20, 2004

Reflecting on France

As the cursor blinks reminding me of my bleak existence, my mind wanders to a time not that long ago, a time when I was happy. I want nothing more than to go back there and live in that fairytale world, surviving amidst the imaginary confines of nothingness. For there were no confines, no real rules or regulations for living and life, no responsibilities as such, just a lazy, spring afternoon lying outstretched in the soft grass covering over me in a simple French village that I’m not sure really existed.

Oh for to run to a train and speed away from it all, on to another fantasy realm that exists entirely within itself; stories and memories that cannot survive outside its bounds because outside the walls they are not reality but instead a quaint story of over stimulated imagination. A taxi or a walk, such a long time forgotten, to a slightly bigger figment of imagination that houses those wondrous vehicles of my destruction. Zipping, zooming, whirling into the night or possibly the soft darkness of an early morning, never too sure of the day or the time or of any realities of the common; destinations unknown, events unimagined, stories unwritten. Life to be lived being the only certainty lying before me, waiting to unfold into a kaleidoscope of everything and nothing at once.

That is the epitome of the wandering soul, the traveler lost among all the places they have never been and all the ones they know too well. They wander not because they have lost their way but because they have not yet found their way. Still all too unsure about their place in life, they flee the scene of their constant reality wanting nothing more than to come across the reality they wish to be constant. In that instant, they will not find fleeting happiness for a moment, but instead they will find lasting joy for a lifetime.

And, as I consider these plausible possibilities in a place bordering on unconsciousness, I am jerked awake by the thrust of the trusty transportation slowing to a halt to bring me to my next adventure. Stepping off, not knowing where I’ll lay my head that night or if I will, my feet carry me onward as my mind hurriedly tries to catch up and adjust to the new landscape of reality.