It's a walk I know so well, having trod the same route on and off for over a year. I turn up my music, losing myself in the beloved and familiar tones of songs I know by heart. The traffic cuts a strange contrast to the mystical unreality I enter in my head as I walk, my eyes attuned to every subtle nuance, every sound, movement and colour.
The jagged shapes of leaves entrance me and my feet try to stick to the dark streak that runs the length of the sidewalk. A bird flies overhead and my eyes follow it's trail, mind questioning it's species, my heart envying it's freedom.
The notes of my song remind me of the sadness of loss and I find tears welling up. The shame of it causes me to turn my head away from the road-the madwoman cries for them, for the sorrow she sees in life's experience.
Patterns catch my eye continuously, blending together. They are steadfast, reliable, organised and calming to my mind. A tree spikes outwards, its branches artistically inclined, yet barren. I walk fast as I always do. One would think I was trying to race time; maybe I am. Life is so very brief. It is a cliche, but really, what is the point of it all? This is on my mind as I tread the gravel path into the common. It is all an endless circle, but what is the end and where is the beginning? What is the point, I ask myself, of living, loving, hating, feeling, learning, remembering, when all is lost in the end? Is there an end? Some would say not.
A dog trails tiredly fter his owner, tail and head held low to the ground as a young mongrel flies past. Poor, poor dog, I think, my heart sad. What must it feel like to now be into his twilight years; as close to death as his fellow is to life. Is this how the elderly feel as they cast glances at young women sitting on the buses? I shake the pity away and stand by the lake, among the rats and the dippy ducks. The water shines darkly and a swan stands out in elegant relief, vain and aware. I stand motionless, a living statue in a curious landscape. I stare at the swan, trying to connect in some way. Maybe it can impart on me some of it's pure white beauty. A rat scuttles past my feet and I sigh, turning away. I still feel an all abiding sadness dragging down at my insides. I see her facein my mind and I try to fathom why. A part of me wishes I could have swapped. I am older and have had my time. I am thirty-two, and in another thirty-two years, I will be sixty-four. Where did the years go? I feel cheated by time.
Someone shouts and I startle, my sharp anger clashing with my gentle spirit. All at once, I am pulled back to this strange, alien place. I glance at peoples' faces, trying to make sense of them. They make so much noiseand seem so different, yet they bleed as I do if cut. I lower my eyes and try to ignore the world. How can you live every day as if it is your last when you daily wish it were your last? The trees and animals overwhelm me with their honest truth and the water and sky draw me in with their perfect symmetry, yet people and their acts of mindless cruelty turn the rest ugly.
I struggle to bring it all to balance in my mind, but I cannot. If the world is such a wonderful place, why is it the beautiful souls find it intolerable and take flight? There are good people here, for sure, but to the jaded mind they are as a miraculous oasis in a bleak and arid desert of materialistic selfishness.
I look up at the mottled sky, hoping for some illumination. The clouds stay silent and watch me from their canopy of stars. A tower block rises up, stark and grim, the bright lit windows like faces staring into the night. I slowly pan my gaze and stare blankly ahead as I return to civilisation and stride towards my familiar places, familiar faces.
29 Oct 2007, 8:29 pm
