"... because continuing, no matter what, was so vitally important."
- Julie Andrews, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

But, not so vitally easy.

The grass sways to the rhythm of the wind.  And, the mighty trees dancing, flirting with ease. In unity, it all seemed like a spectacle from an autumn ball. Nature has a way of humouring itself and reduces everyone else to an admirer or a suitor. Occasionally though, a critic will stumble upon a scene as such and make 14 lines worth of complaints. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines ... He, the poet.

As a spectator, I stood, watched and then walked away because I was unmoved. The scene stuck and struck like £4 poster at a university sale against a pale, bare wall. Adding only colours but no angles, no perspectives. Just strokes of cheap imagination against a torn canvas. As a spectator, the wind blew too strong, too cold. I, the whiner.

By now, one should think that the story of the road less travelled by would become something more of a Thumbelina than the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk - small and tucked neatly at a corner of the untouched folds of the mind. It hasn't. Instead, it has taken the liberty (and with no pinch of a request or interest from me either) to recite the chant like a rooted cult curse. I never blame the poetry. Poetry is beautiful. I blame the poet. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Oh, how the man mocks me.

So, you walk on - with the rough winds and sometimes against the rough winds. Because Nature and its whims do not stop for a nod or bow for a kiss. They move in their ease and at their pace. When you reach the famed two roads diverged in the yellow woods, you let your heart flutter with its Tinkerbell's wings and carry you as far as it could.

The trouble is and always has been that the heart is a brittle creature with no knowledge of its brittleness. It has no eyes and therefore cannot see that it is no more than flesh and blood. It has no ears and therefore would obstinately refuse judgment or reason. It is a Maria - A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! As much as the heart seems the foolish creature you try to keep its fairy dust from sprinkling everywhere, God made it the one part inside us that beats the hardest, the strongest; the one part willing to fight the battles others consider meaningless. Oh, how He mocks me.

So, in all the face of all the world's mockeries ... we walk on. Because continuing, no matter what, is vitally important.

[[ book ]] Julie Andrews: Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
[[ mood ]] blank

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"All the time I thought that I was wrong
Wanting to believe but needing to belong
If I'd've just believed in all I had ..."
- Barry Manilow, All The Time

Maybe it was wrong.

As if in the moment, the sea parted: All the time, all the wasted time, All the years waiting for a sign. It will soon be apparent to ordinary vision that the flags will rise and arms thrown up but heads down - a walk to an end. There is an end. It need not matter. Denial is a demanding self-prescribed sedative whose search for a willing victim or companion is almost never in vain. 

The wind in its imposing stateliness gathered and conducted the leaves to a seemingly odd waltz - a flick, a bow, a turn. Black ravens swarmed across the sky to complete an unlikely social gathering.  The sheeps led and the horses trotted pass. Every click of every hoof heard, drummed to a fixated melody of the wind. Every click, every merciless hoof against the tender soreness of the heart. A swirl, a swoosh at the shins and the knees bent and one will fall. Fists clenching the earth and weary arms pushing against the ground so one could stand again.

From below, there are no more than a dark blanket across the sky and waves which stood like legions of guards and militants awaiting inspection. Tall, still but threatening to collapse at the fall of a hat. Some part inside one's self almost wanted, wished for it to collapse. One could be guided away nobly by the blameless seas serving as escorts, drifting to the shores of the unknown. Not one end or the other. Nor one decision against another.

But, carried to somewhere unfamiliar to nosy, cursory judgments of empty shells and coarse voices of strangers' hasty accusing pretensions. Needless to defend a tactless jest, needless to contest against a floating accusation. After all, life should not be a anyone else's ritual but one's alone. From below, a vision of one end is no better than a glimpse of the other. From below, one could crawl away into the waves of indifference. There is an escape. Denial. One cannot. The sea was parted so it could be crossed.

The Wind swings its wand again - to impose, to push, to rush. So the arms pushed once more against the ground and one stood up, stood still. Brushed off the dirt on the knees and palms. Rotated a full circle. To walk back is not cowardly; it is a choice one could make. To look ahead is not bravery; it is just another choice one could make. To have choices is not luxury; it is just another heartache. 

Another round and I walk on.

All the time, all the wasted time
All the years waiting for a sign
To think I had it all
All the time

So, I walk on.

[[ music ]] Barry Manilow - All The Time
[[ book ]] Julie Andrews - Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
[[ mood ]] moody

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