When I was young I climbed mountains, just to see the other side. Now everyday life is a mountain I am climbing all through the day. Still I see the valley I must wade through tonight. I follow the stream running opposite of me, running way from the mountain. My legs strain to keep pace with my mind, running ahead. I still think, but thoughts like puzzle pieces needing arranged to make a picture. A little bit here, a little bit there. I catch up to myself while I am placing the final pieces, then my mind is off again. It is difficult to follow the jigsaw cobblestone path still in pieces, waiting for the edges to be complete.
No one else understands. Not many take the time to hear or read what it would take to start to perceive. Even I, if I met another with such trials could not hope to see. The experiences it takes to have firsthand knowledge makes knowing another puzzle piece. For years I have played the poet, wondering what I needed to pen, so I penned what I wanted and waited. Now the challenge is to pen so someone else may read and comprehend. Up to now the volumes have been practice so I might, out of habit, pen this today.
Practice only makes perfect in a perfect world. For the rest of some of us it makes imperfect repeated until it is accepted, by one’s self anyway. For others, they write the procedure that makes their imperfectness acceptable to those who analyze perfection according to their procedure. Wooden soldiers watching one tin soldier ride away. A singer at the end of their song wondering, “What do I do now?” A lone actor watching the audience from the stage, thinking, “How grand it would be to belong.” We all belong, just step down from the pulpit.
I was small when I was born. I have grown some. So have my friends and family, the ones that have made it to today. It concerns me that I may have outgrown who I am. Is it possible that I have learned something that makes me someone else? Maybe I forgot to be me and am someone else by default. But if it is my default, isn’t it me? If I learned something that made me forget to be me, I may also have forgotten who my default was. Then are my friends who I think them to be? Does my family recognize me only because I told them I was? Another mountain with valleys below!
It seems I have taken another road less traveled. Although I seem to remember traveling it once before. My memory may be a trick, trying to get me to remember who I am not anymore. Perhaps it was me, who I am, who traveled this way. The trick may be stopping me from seeing who I could have been. Reading over what I wrote, it almost sounds like a dance. Maybe not. There may not be enough rhythm for the singer to dance the free verse. I have never been a singer, but the other me could dance. It is odd remembering who I’m not; it is almost like I am both them and me. If I could only take a chance.