Alpine Aura

I snapped a picture from the heights. Our shadow, plastered on the pines, was captured forever in an image of exploration. I loved photography, it was an escape, a tool. I always thought myself an artist, someone who needed to share perspective, imbue point of view. Right now, as my uncle flies this little puddle-hopper over a sea of "never-to-be-found" foliage, the camera took my mind away from the fear, "oh god, oh god, we're gonna crash." Nope, only turbulence, crisis averted. As we reached our destination, (a little nothing town in upstate Washington) I looked through my camera's memory. Bland, bland, bland....but wait.
The plane in the pine. It spoke to me with a silent aura, an artistic flair. Now in the car, we drive to the nearest CVS, picking up supplies on our way to the cabin. Stopping at the photo counter printed and framed my prize, the original, "A plane in the Pines." I wanted the world to see, I wanted others to know. When we got to the cabin, I rushed in. Instagram, Facebook, email–all were tools in my arsenal of communication. I spread the image far and wide, eagerly awaiting similar reactions (the breathtaking fear I felt seeing the original). Yet...to my dismay, things were not the same. It was as though I tore a hole in meaning, tarnished the aura. No one cared, no one felt the same rush; it was as if through reproduction, I changed the image itself, art fled. (Walter Benjamin).
I walked outside with my uncle and was greeted by nature. Drowned in a flood of green, doused with pine scent, soaked in sunlight, I found the real art before my eyes.... growth.

Soft Defiance

We stood in the calm after the storm, reeling from the horror that once took place below our feet.
As we peered over the the edge of the ancient tank, a whiff of dried blood and fear sprang up to meet us. It was nearly a month after the incident. A month of pain and confusion, etched indelibly in our minds. And yet, it was all so fresh.

I closed my eyes. I could still see the man, stumbling about in a panic below us, his eyes lit with a fire I hope I'll never know. Thrashing, biting, tearing away at himself like a caged animal, he ran at the glass walls. I remember a dull thud and the sight of smeared blood. It was chaos in a vacuum. Panic incarnate. Fear.
Reeling from the impact he fell to the ground, writhing about, cursing the world around him, cursing life, cursing the system, and cursing us. I shiver at the thought.

I've replayed that fateful night a thousand times... always in silence, like a muted explosion. Now, my eyes open to calm, and all I hear are sounds: birds chirping, the coarse crash of the ocean in the distance, the subtle whisper of wind tossing about tattered police tape. They speak in soft defiance to the horror that marks this spot. We stand rooted, like trees in the arctic, growing out of infertility. Using our pain as fuel, our fear for growth.

The Trampled Tracks

The train flies past us Nadja, you and I, taunting us with its freedom: it has no home, it has no roots, only a direction and nothing more. The air outside was growing cooler, the breeze was blowing harder, and we were alone, tossed about in a wake of steam and stolen air. 
The train was halfway past now, reaching out beyond our control like a timeline of steel. I wanted to be on it.. to be the blur before my eyes, to be full of life, full of expression, happy. 

In the late afternoon the sunlight began to fall behind the train...and we were alone.

I look to you for reassurance, but you too were lost, captivated by the flitter of light between carts as if its morse code held the secret to life. Your eyes were filled with wonder, like a nomad in a new land. I even caught a faint outline of a smile, as if from some inside joke between you and the train, that which I had no part in.
Turning back, I checked the tracks again as if I'd missed something. Was it the sun? Was it the train?What broke my spirit filled yours.... why were you so damn happy? No one could be that happy in this town. Not me at least. But it all looked the same, cart after cart after cart, slipping past us as the sun ran away behind the horizon. 

At last, with a great surge of air, the iron beast left us, chugging away to better things. 

I didn't understand. I'm not like you, I could never match your surreal swirl of emotion. I am the tracks and you the train. I am the logic. You are art. I turned to you but found nothing, only darkness...

and I was alone.

Stop and Go!

http://escapefromtheburbs.blogspot.com/

I swear, I’ll get out of this town if it’s the last thing I do. Change is natural, they say. And yet, life persists, static........

Is growth even possible in suburban suspension? To be: the mouse to beat the rat race, the tree to breach the canopy, to grown, unabated and free? Yes, we know, the system tells us no, and though...we must forego the show. 

You are the carefully planted trees, placed at predetermined intervals along the cul de sac, manicured and primed to be proper and poised. You will grow in that exact spot for years and years and die, right there, in Sametown, U.S.A. And yes, you will be safe, and you will be guarded. But you will stagnate in the malaise that paints you a number and not a person.......

This is the path, YOU have the choice. 

Be the ragged spruce, looking down on the mountain. Be the desert cactus, laughing at the Sahara's scorn. Be the noble Banyan, vine strong with life.
Because really, growth comes from within, and change is taking a chance. It is looking at "the same interstate..the same office..and the same Microsoft excel spreadsheet" and saying no. 

I'm not asking you to scorn the path, only to question it. To pull up to the stop sign, take a look around, and think.

Growth

When is it? 

Why? How? What...makes us change? 

What compels growth in an infertile world; 

where are we now and who were we when? 

Time..perhaps.

That "tick," that "tock," the brusk knock of the clock. We all get the wake-up calls no one asked for.

But lo, time is not change, it is only the foundation. 

Change is organic, they say. Change is natural, they say. And yet, life persists, static........

Without a direction, change never comes. Without action, we are only but a pile of thoughts: an anthill of wasted ambition, a river of dreams. Dust.

I once heard, "good things come to those who wait."

but, at the same time:

 "A watched pot never boils."

...at some point you. me. he. she. I.... need to turn on the burner.

Because really, growth comes from within. It is not the product of time, it is not a class, a grade, a notch on the scale that paints you a number; growth is taking a chance.

Look above, feel the shade of the tree. That solid, growing tree that came before you, and will live without you. It knows growth, it knows life..we should be so lucky.

It reaches for a sun it will never hold, and yet it grows, unabated, free. 

I envy you.