Sleeplessness

 In the passing days of the last month of 2022 I find myself-- and i'm sure I'm not alone in this reflection-- a man sitting alone on a starless, windy night thinking of the past year. And thoughts of the past days and years of my life bound in right behind. it's only natural. I mean they are connected like links in a chain. It's all connected. Time is the thread and I'm like the puff of wind brushing along its length.

My mind tends to wander at these times and at night it's the worst. I lie awake, eyes wide open taking in the darkness of our bedroom and running the memories of what has been and continues to be my life. I watch the occasional dance of headlights over our ceiling as random late night voyagers pass by our home. I listen to the wind pound and whoosh and whisper. The flag on the front of our house flaps against those winds, helpless against it. The rings holding it to the pole rattled and work to keep it flowing. Always flowing.

In Sleeplessness, my mind shuffles a million little codes and bits of memories into nothing coherent. Just blips in time, pieces of memories of me in the life I've lived-- the life I continue to live. Perhaps, the mind needs to catch up sometimes. Maybe sometimes the memories are too many and the mind just stays awake to catch up. I mean, it's a pretty amazing piece of machinery, the brain. We know zilch about it's potential. But, we're only human and humans can only live one moment at a time. We're not time-travelers just yet. Unless, we can consider that our memories are windows into a past we are still living; an always constant and always moving line of time. It never ends and it's all connected along that thread.

The wind is dying down. The night is calm again.

Just like life on that thread. Always changing and always moving forward.

The end of another year is only days away but it's also the start of a new year. A new length of thread unwinds and stretches out for us to travel along.

It comes no matter what. Past, Present and all.

I'm not sure where exactly I was going with any of this but there it is. A peek into a sleepless night. A wandering mind tapped into random moments of the past while keeping a fine-tuned ear to what is here and what is coming. So much noise most times. So much silence in others.

I suppose I'll try to close my eyes. The night has quieted and the time may be right. Time doesn't stop but at least we can shut down and recharge when we need to. Staying awake wouldn't change anything anyway. You'd still get to where you're going at the exact time you get there anyway. Not sure that made sense but I'm keeping it there. Time will tell.

I suppose I'll try to close my eyes. I can feel them getting heavy. Not quite burning with exhaustion but definitely gaining a few pounds. I suppose I'll finish this up. I'll head upstairs and crawl on top of my heating blanket, lay my swaying head into my pillow and the, I suppose I'll try to close my eyes.

Sleeplessness will pave a way to sleep. Memories will be files away back into the folders and cabinets from whence they came and I will continue along the thread... one breath at a time.

I suppose I'll try to close my eyes.

Seeking The Wild

 

I consider myself an avid reader. Maybe not to the standards of those who have the gift of getting lost to every available moment to read more than a hundred (or more) books a year, no, not that many. Not even close. I like to devour books but need to take the time to think on them and mull over their ideas and their structure, their characters and how they made me feel. I like to think of it as an equivalent to eating. Some readers devour stories like vampires with only the stack of finished corpses to satisfy them but I like to chew on them awhile and enjoy the taste. 

Usually, the type of books I like to ready are mostly fiction and if it's Stephen King (whether you like him or not) everything goes to the back of the line. A good horror/ thriller is top notch for me but the really good ones are few and far between in my humble opinion. There are a good handful of course but those stories take a good amount of time to cultivate.

While I'm waiting for the next good one, I decided to try something different. An autobiography of sorts called The Lonely Land by Sigurd F. Olson and I have to say it's wonderful.

So a little back story here. Lately, I've been watching a plethora of Youtube videos of bushcraft channels and just can't get enough. If you're not familiar with what Bushcraft is here's a simple idea: it is self reliance and survival in the depths of nature. But, there's something deeper to it I think. There's a connection to Creation that I believe society as a whole has become blinded to; a beauty that we cannot see anymore because of all the distractions of phones and Netfilx and working paycheck to paycheck. There's a simplicity to this that shows what we really need and what is truly "necessary" to live and live happily.

While watching one of my favorite channels (sorry I don't remember which one) I have noticed several books that these guys are reading as they spend their quiet nights alone. The Lonely Land was one of them so I ordered a copy of ebay and am already about half through it. What a wonderful change of pace. And, although the book was written in the sixties, there is an absolute simplistic beauty in the journey that one can both see and feel. It causes the heart to yearn for such things. Deep down a man wants to journey in search of such beauty and adventure. He wants to see all that was put before him and be a part of it all.

Perhaps, some day, I will answer that calling. Perhaps that adventure awaits for me to see the sun set and rise with only the distant horizon to stand in my way.

Seek the wild.