Alone?

Alone?

Are we ever really alone? I feel as though running away from myself is a trick I have yet to master. No matter where I hide, my memories find me. Perhaps it is not a mystery we attribute to our lack of invisibility but a solution to eroding companionships, as time marches toward its destination, wherever that might be.

I went deep into the woods, dark with seemingly foreboding despair, until I took the time to sit on the remains of a fallen oak, whose bark had long since relinquished its purpose. Fronds were poking their furled heads from a diverse carpet of decaying matter, last year’s promise. A faint green that had the opportunity to take advantage of the dappled light, appears, a dusting of possibility; it takes my paint by number appreciation of color and turns it into a Picasso.

The smell is that of life and death simultaneously erupting in the air, bringing back nostalgia and the apprehension associated with the unknown. My memories of emerging stems and feathery leaves unwinding themselves from a winters sabbatical in a matter of minutes and became a remembered dream from a time I no longer remember.

Trilliums, their first display of white peddles protruding from the accumulation of a past that was once a dozen shades of life and is now a hundred shades of rebirth. Its cluster of leaves parading around its stem, framing the golden undulations of a future dance. A light breeze finds its way through the trees and brushes my face. A single shard of light reflected from last evenings cloud burst, finds the white peddles nestled in the leaves protection; only the tears remain. It smiles at me with a sense of kindness I’d not experienced before.

I leave this shadowy place to its own rewards and follow the trail once again toward the rock I take comfort from. It is a huge piece of limestone that has found a home outside its origin and rests surrounded by grasses; it is unapologetically out of its environment, no explanation asked for, none needed. Often appearances are not what they appear to be; a manifestation of accidents that leave us tied to a place that no longer exists.

The path remains dark in color as the water has yet to be claimed by the sun. I can hear the plants following its lead attempting to syphon every drop of life from the earth before the sun arrives and forecloses on a pretense that has evolved in an effort to sustain what could not be, were it not for the devious nature of survival.

I have been here before.I come as often as the need arises, not because I’m lonely or to escape certainty, but I fear the rock may be so inclined.It’s color changes with light and moisture, so it is difficult to distinguish its mood, although I have come to appreciate its ability to look forlorn on the surface and yet be bubbling with enthusiasm as its color leach onto its face and leave only the tracks of tears it is incapable of producing, but does.

A tree, knurled and appearing as though it has been in the talented hands of an arborist who it is claimed died over 2000 years ago, but whose spirit lives in the woods caring for its creations by leaving them to their own destiny. It’s roots are visible as they crawl along the rocks surface extracting what they can from the impenetrable, until they find a fissure caused by a winters breath and slips inside to ascertain the power it holds because of the life it supports.

Moss, an indescribable array of variants, blends of yellow and green that hug the stone for assurance and are repaid with the essentials of its existence. I can feel the moss as it responds to my touch, a slight purr, like that of a kitten, satisfied with its safety and its chance of a tomorrow.

Patches of blue-like quilt squares dot the sky above where the tree pinnacles have stopped their search for grandeur, and have become satisfied with growing old and content, without having to do more than continue to exist. Their roots are entwined with those of their neighbors, and if you listen carefully you can hear the impulses of Ma Bell and her cohorts, chattering about the odds of the earths surviving the next onslaught of progress and its consequences; the trash it leaves in the wake of a renaissance will change everything for the better, or so it has been prophesized.

I continue to where the trail stops its gentle rambling, and dives toward the water contained by the sculpting of a glacier a millennium ago. It could not depart without being reminded that there are things more powerful than the desires of man.

I climb down a slope erupting with new growth after a campfires escape, its lust searching for a new experience. What remains is like the hair on a tanned hide, standing like unfulfilled promises, discouraged but alert. Their replacements having escaped the soil, now strain to transform the light from above into the shadows of a new time, that only poets can see and dreamers can appreciate.

My hands become black with the soot of ages as I cling to their naked bodies in hopes of remaining upright. I bounce from one death to another, my path interrupted only by their sprouting replacements. They peek from the soil at a world that looks promising despite the dreams they have experienced during their transformation.

The patch of blue above the water hosts a bird, an eagle. Its head glistening in the light, its wings spread majestically in welcoming fashion, its talons recoiled in readiness, should its eyes detect movement that belongs to a different time and place, and yet it is now, in this moment, that makes that time and place possible.

I reach the shore; small stones lay on one another seeking the warmth of a millennium of experiences they have yet to experience but know exist. The remains of branch having turned the distinguished gray only aging can provide, sits alone, its spirit turned from the sun, it has had enough and only wants to become a part of something else, something new.

A fish emerges from the water’s glassy surface; the ripples seek relief on the shoreline. They embrace the rocks, changing their veiled appearance into the semblance of circus clowns who have forgotten their shyness, and now run as though chased by an arrogance they did not know they possessed, leaving every stone appreciative of having experienced their potential.

I sit on the pouting limb and listen as a frog imparts the news of the day, and a raccoon busily turns over a submerged rock in search of survival, by way of the inherited lessons that were learned over time and for the purpose of ensuring a tomorrow. A small stream nearby relates the gossip of the day from above, where the hills have dispelled the water not needed. It follows the path of least resistance, stopping periodically to oblige the thirsty plants along its edge before it continues its serpentine route toward the lake and the placidity of depth.

A pair of loons following their ancient cries glide past, and then as if embarrassed by their overture, they dive into the blackness and reemerge a hundred yards away. They’d rise from a distant past and find themselves in a present where their calls are content to disrupt the quiet and emerge as an echo. I watch as they both turn to see if the are being followed, and when satisfied they are not, they disappear again into the depths never to be seen again; only the ancient echo remains as part of a new memory I do not wish to avoid.

A squirrel has taken my presence to be an afront to his dignity. It chatters at my shadow as if I were the enemy, forgetting in his suspicion to see the shadow of evolution brush the tree tops, whose yet imagined leaves barely stir as they have as yet to learn the necessity of fear, and how it translates to a future or becomes fossilized in a past that failed to pay attention to the realities of today.

The shadows are beginning to lengthen, and the wind carries a reminder that summer has not yet come, and winter has yet to be ignored. I prepare to leave another days rehearsal to the past and begin to pick my way past the emerging barbed blackberry vines that seek the attention of passersby in hopes of being recognized before bearing fruit and become a forgotten remembrance of a bird migration whose final act was cut short by the first of the unwelcome snowflakes.

I pull my way up the hill with the help of the skeletons forged by fire and fall onto the grass that is attempting to recreate itself in its own image. I can see the quilted sky is hosting a variety of changing cumulus shapes that appear to glow from within, as the sun’s fleeting rays expose their secrets to those who have the privilege to see the transformation of the ordinary, until the reruns play unrehearsed for all eternity.

I find the path at the end of the meadow and shuffle down its unkept surface, creating premonitions of dust that encircle me like absolution before the wind tells it to relax, whispering, “he means no harm.” Asking forgiveness of a path is a different experience for me. I can’t remember the last time I confided in the wind in an effort to be forgiven my trespasses.

I stop to admire a branch that has been forced across the trail. Its budding surface alive with life; pinkish white protrusions that are poised to explode into a means to an end and then disappear into the past to await a future it does not know exists but is willing to wait for proof, just in case.

I arrive at my four wheeled steed, as the last of the days light has turned to a crimson replica in a painters memory. The breeze has disappeared and the commotion of a thousand plants subside as I close the door of the vehicle. I look out the windshield to find a fawn, newly awakened from a day of invisibility, standing on the road looking at me as if I didn’t belong. It caused me to consider that perhaps I, and others like me, are no longer reliable partners and should be avoided as the stench of dissociative behavior lingers.

I close my eyes and can visualize the loneliness I have left behind and the aloneness I have returned to; neither of them having missed me. I have come to believe that the difference between being alone and being lonely, is captured by a budding branch, an evolutionary shadow, a chanting stream, and the ripples that cause ancient echoes to disappear into the darkness and reemerge as visions our memory is made of.

I once again have managed to stuff my mental closet with recollections I cannot hide from, because, if I were successful, I would have to follow the loons into the darkness with little hope or reemerging as me.