If I were to write a poem about this day
It would not be autobiographical
I was not here
My mind elsewhere
Floating free from all that bothered me
I was the hawk that hovered
A wildflower plucked
The tree which I leaned against as I ate my lunch
I tipped my head back
Stared at the sky
And I dreamt in colours
That sparked rainbows behind my eyelids
If I were anything I chose today
I was light
and then I receded
Was I awake
Or still sleeping?
Some days we just never know
And I guess these are the days we grow
Unencumbered by our usual limitations
*There are days when potential is pure, untapped. We can feel that if we just knew who it was we wanted to be, we could be anything
Or anyone
I get this feeling when I’m travelling on a motorbike in the middle of nowhere. I feel my consciousness soaring up to a higher perspective, looking down at this tiny person, a dot in the arid landscape. It’s a little bit scary, the vulnerability, but within the fragility is a feeling of being everyone and nobody.
Or rather, anybody
And if you are any body – you could be anyone.
And who would that be, if you could just become anything?
We live within such tight parameters of all we know about ourselves, and all others know about us. And yet like the known universe – there are vast areas left to discover.
How awful to die without at least attempting to explore further outside our own known terrain
People grow to limits set by their own idea of who they are. But how do we know who we are if we haven’t first discovered all of the things which we are not?
And that takes time and courage and also a certain amount of curiosity, but it is sad to wait too long, because think of the years that are lost not doing a thing that you later find you love
I think of people who have carried out the same monotonous routine all their lives who retire, and then, with more time on their hands begin to dabble in other things. The 70 year old who discovers a latent talent for art, the 64 year old who develops an interest in bee keeping. The man whose more conservative wife dies, who begins to cover himself in tattoos (true story I read an article about him). A woman who always wanted to ride and buys a motorbike at 69 and then begins to tour.
All those years that they could have been doing these things they love to do
But they just didn’t know it
I don’t know why we wait so long to find out what we love
I’m just not someone who is patient
Header photo: Eric Masur Unsplash
