It is such a great thing to have made a day of it and to
know that all is well with the world. I’ve had some of those down through the years.
You know it has been one when at the end of the day you just feel complete, or
somewhat at peace with yourself and those around you. It would be great if it
happened every day, but we know that life does not afford us those victories all
the time. There are lots more that end up with a bit of that feeling that there
may have been more, or well something is missing and it can gnaw at our ability
to rest satisfactorily.
Down our way there are lots of things to see, but not many of
what we call bi-roads. You may call them something else in your location;
secondary roads perhaps or country lanes. There are so many that can be
traveled in a lifetime and many we love to travel over and over again, because
at the end, there is something special to see or experience. I remember back a
few years to my youth, taking trips with our parents down many of those country
roads. We were explorers, setting out to new adventures and seeking new
experiences and each little lane and old dirt road was just another avenue of
delight in our eyes. Those weekly trips called for a complete loss of control.
Not that Dad let go of the steering wheel, but he let go of the stereotypes of
the ordinary and the practiced. There was chance that by the end of the day we
would have seen most of the back roads of almost any part of the South Shore of
Nova Scotia. That meant loosely targeting an area and then letting the road
rise before us and not being afraid of a few signs of hard travel. Yup… My Dad
and Mom were adventurers and they feared not as the road narrowed and there
tended to be a few more bold representations of waterholes and large rocks to
be gotten over or around. It was all part of the quest to find new treasures…
memories never forgotten.
I have been thinking of late…. I know, some will say that is
dangerous, but I do stop and take stalk of the time and tides as the clock
ticks on. It may be an appropriate season of life to go on a few of those
adventures again. I think, as much as that is practical, that the old haunts at
this point in time may hold for me a few “new” surprises, some new forms of
adventure that may have eluded me some 50 years back. I am not so myopic at
this point… well… that is my opinion and I am allowed to have one by virtue of
my age… right? LOL
But life becomes cluttered. The opportunities do not always
align with the right time and the time does not always align properly with the
correct mood and the mood does not always match the atmospheric conditions…
well you get my point. The “stuffs” of life get in the way. I heard, well more
correctly read a thoughtful, yet odd suggestion a while back… it was, needing
to watch a TV program on hoarding to feel like we are not such a bad
housekeeper. Hmm! At first I chuckled and then I let my imagination run with
the idea that we do hoard “stuff” and not only that cumulative pile of junk
that could go to the annual yard sale or the local Thrift Shop. I mean the
stuff we poke into the memory banks in most inappropriate ways and with little
justification, other than the fact that we carry those burdens just as that…
Burdens! They may eat away at our sense and our sensibilities and cause the
joys of life to elude us, when there are those once more adventurous, more
freedom granting and joy filling experiences of the Roads Less Traveled; as a thought from Frost. Hope I can get away
with that, but I do give him credit as that bit of prose (and I do love poetry)
as it has been somewhat of a guide in life for me.
But I digress. Where was I… Oh yes, the clutter… Now that is the bane of our existence. We
tend to trip over it on the way to living every day. If I had a broom that
could handle that mess of useless, hard to handle, self-limiting and downright
baffling mess, I would market it and make a fortune. What am I saying?… more,
more, more and what I need is less, less, less! Well, you get the drift here. There
is always another definition, another justification and another route that
seems quite right at the time, and we all play in that sandbox at some point in
life, without fail.
Ha… ya, now there is a word… to fail. My view of failure is
another’s view of freedom sometimes… all in a person’s perspective in life. That
thinly struck line is a demarcation of the things that can get us down. It’s kind
of like a tempest in a teapot; we can get struck by the overwhelming sense that
whatever it is, becomes too big to handle; when in fact we just need to
breathe. Perspective is an awesome teacher. To some life is a haphazard heap of
one hardship after another and for others it is the joy of daily challenges
that can create just another adventure. Hmm…. Wonder where I “FIT” in there.
Perhaps somewhere between challenged and haphazard. Oh well, I just gotta be
me, but the clutter needs to be controlled. Yup… gonna control the clutter!
I sometimes wonder, as I wander along the path, if I am
stuck or struck. Have you ever thought about that? We can get stuck in life and
we can get struck in life as well. We all know, I would suppose, that the idea
of being stuck is somewhat a familiar concept and easy to relate to, for some
or perhaps even many. “Been there and done that”, some might even now be rehearsing.
But the struck concept… now that is a bit different “kettle of fish”… OK... the
use of “geographic centered terms is limited to those of certain backgrounds,
but hey… walk nearer the edge and use some creative research. Have you ever
taken a hard knock to the head, an unexpected hit to the mid-section? Well, it
can take the wind out of you, stun you and even cause damage that can affect
you in the future. It can’t always be averted, or they can hit you when you
didn't see it coming. Sometimes there are those things which just happen, but
they have consequences both short and long-term and the sting can be paralyzing
at many different levels.
You see clutter is the backyard pile of non-essentials, it
is the closet of hoarded past that no longer fits, but felt good to wear, it is
the day to day stacks of papers, magazines, dishes left unwashed, laundry still
to be started, but it is also those physical and mental pictures, feelings and
fears that hide in the crevices of time and season. I am dependent, not so much
anymore, upon other’s grace to get me through. That is hard. I am trying to
deal with the clutter, in its various forms in life, and am using the overall
mechanics and mechanisms of life to get me through… I am biding my time. The
one great tool I have at my disposal is love… and another thus far is memory.
The latter can be a curse if you are not careful. The way I see it is this… I
am loved more than I can imagine, I have been taken on some pretty great
adventures and my God has gotten me both to them and gotten me safely home thus
far. Family growing up, family being grown and family being expanded has been a
blessing. A set of friends, associates, travel more than some and perhaps more
than most and now back home again… But now, I am biding my time. Letting go of
the clutter, yet busy building what is both important to my those around me and
am preparing for years of more adventures and another trip home when the time
comes.
I've got some old country lanes and back roads to revisit
too! There are some older faces to look upon once again and find the love that
is “at harbour” there, while sharing some moments with some new faces would be
great too. We are doing some of that every day, as new experiences turn the
pages of time and tide. Why don’t you take a step towards the edge? We are on
that journey anyway. Look a little further out… it is new perspective and the
view from there may be challenge, but what a great view it is!
