Thirty-Four Elephants

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." --Publilius Syrus I spend an excessive amount of time firming the narrative of my life.  If I believe anything, it is that purpose gives the details meaning. My details, you see, are scattered.  For a while, it has been a slow leak.  Drip. Drip. Drip.  Then one event crashed through the dam and my details are spraying, like a geyser, all over the wilderness.  Can you imagine trying to stop Old Faithful?  Can you imaging wanting to stop Old Faithful? Perhaps I am a park ranger, sent here to tend to a natural phenomena.  I observe.  I take furious notes, capturing every detail.  The sun sets and I leave at day's end.  The geyser erupting, out of control, but now alone. Perhaps I am a tourist, come for the day.  I read the signs, "Danger" and "Stay back".  For ten minutes, I drink in the beauty with my eyes.  I let little puddles of water build on my poncho.  I l...

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."   --Helen Keller Life is a tricky thing.  It is easy to find the extremes (too much, too little) but takes a great deal of practice to hit the sweet spot. Travel seems to help.  It gives you enough distance from your daily life to have perspective.  From 30,000 feet everything looks like a Monet.  Beautiful, but longing for definition. Travel, the act of being away, is communion for me. It awakens my sense of self, a beast I cage everyday to survive.  And that is just it, I am surviving. In the long game, survival is a beautiful thing.  It is a gritty, desperate enterprise.  But survival deserves a foe.  What is it that I am surviving?  A life?  Is life the foe? See this metaphor shines light on a truth that is too bleak for most.  We must introduce creation.  I believe artists create their way out of surviving life.  So here I am, back....