Being a writer and sentimental fool, I think I’ve always tended to view
the world somewhat poetically, seen deeper layers of meaning in just
about everything. Lately, feeling a strange sense of deep happiness and
sadness concurrently (...?), I’ve been catching myself attaching
symbolic meaning to things more and more, have taken my day-to-day life as a
series of metaphors that can serve to teach me lessons about how to put
the grander picture in perspective. Case in point, the bleaching of
wishbones taken from various tables over the past year or so and stuck
in my freezer, as they hold all this potential in the mere fact that
they are not yet broken and can go either way in perpetuity. Frozen in
time, literally. I like looking at them. I might do an art project with
them. Yes, I know, I’m a very odd bird. I like to pretend it’s
endearing.
I’ve been hiking a lot lately with the warm weather, which is when I’ve
always done my best thinking. I think it’s in our family blood, and
being alone in nature is about as close to spirituality/religion as I
come. The trail serves as a universal symbol, rather
Jungian,
actually, and I always naturally have a deeper sense when I am on any
path or road stretching out before me that it can also be seen as the
opportunity still before me in life (like the wishbones), and makes me
think of the ways I can handle obstacles. Add to that the timeless
parable (in all its international forms) of climbing a mountain, and how can I not wax pensive?
There are a lot of lizards on the trail, and I find them amusing,
scurrying this way and that when I pass, eyeing me in reptilian
greeting. They’re mostly peripheral, keeping me company as I walk. But
I look ahead and think about snakes. And let me add the caveat that I
actually like snakes, so this does not fall under collective
unconscious/universal symbol of a "snake" (Jungian OR
Freudian, ahem), but personal symbol. So, I think about snakes on the trail. I think, what do I do if there’s a
snake on the trail, as sometimes there is? I think, there are harmless
snakes and poisonous snakes, and sometimes you can’t tell which is
which at first glance. A snake which at first appears harmless may
suddenly strike out of some false sense of danger at my approach. It’s
my job to jump aside, but it may take me by surprise. Then it may still
turn out to be a non-poisonous snake, and its bite just for show. (Note
to you snakes out there: I’m reading up on
snakes
so I won’t be as easily fooled). Some snakes slither quickly off into
their holes and watch me from a distance. And once I saw what I thought
was a lizard popping his head out from behind a rock ahead, and it
turned out to be a rattlesnake as it slithered out further. Those are
the ones I fear.
Often, a few turkey vultures circle overhead rather ominously, looking
for dead animals in the hills. I always feel a bit intimidated by them,
feel the urge to remind them “I’m not dead yet”, to borrow from
Monty Python.
So scram! Stop breathing down my neck, you avian Grim Reapers! They
remind me to live, to stay in the moment, to really make it count. Feel
it, taste it, fucking
breathe, and drink it in. Live with the volume
up, not on mute. Because the vultures are telling you, your time is
gonna come at some point up the trail, and they are going to be there
when it does. There will be no going back. Make it count.
And of course, in every path, trail, or road, there is a
fork,
a proverbial road less traveled, a high road or low road, whatever you
want to call it. When I was younger, I didn’t always plunge in to take
a new path when I should have. I feared falling. I feared the unknown.
I didn't knock on the door. I am slightly braver now, and forks remind
me I have choices, and I don’t have to take the road that’s most
obvious. I took a new trail recently which was narrower than the other,
and as I scrambled down the grainy, rocky path, I slipped and fell on
my ass (and somehow scraped my knees). But I got up and I got a
different view, saw something new. The symbolic parallel of that
experience wasn’t lost on me as I have faced various personal forks and
crossroads lately in my life. You can’t always know where the path
leads, and the most attractive path (and oh, how nice it is) might
lead to a dead end, but at least you got off the highway (getting
dangerously close to mixing metaphors here- must tread lightly. Ah.
There we go.)
So, friends, loved ones, new and old alike, I now fully expect you’ve
attached your own meaning to my symbolic journey. And if you believe it
may be about you, yes, it’s about you. Yes, I am talking about
you. I
wish you well on your paths, and revel in the places we intersect,
whether that be past, present, or future.
