In Sight

Two years she walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped... Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage... No longer to be poisoned by civilization she flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

-Alexander Supertramp / Christopher McCandless (by his rightful name), slightly amended
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then she returns. And escapes again. And again comes back to an imaginary, manipulated, carved-out-of-nothing habitation, creating chores for herself and fostering a sense of responsibility that builds like fragile match sticks stacked upon one another. One slip and she'll go into blazes, the true fire-sign that she is, only to pause, embrace the beauty of her recycled embers, and go on to use the scraps and rubble as fertilizer for her next grand adventure, whether it's an adventure found in the wild, The City, or lost wholly within the mind's abyss.

The world we all know is recycling. AM/PM, 24 hours on repeat. Feed the kids, feed the pets, feed yourself and work it off. Take out the trash. Favorite weekly sitcom on Thursdays, watch the reruns on Tuesdays. The seasons - see the fog roll in, roll out, roll over, and the cherry-blossoms morph throughout the year, the years. Grow up. Grow strong. Get tired. Shiver in your ever-present adolescence beneath your certain tears, and let your fears lay down to die. Reabsorb the wet salt on your cheeks so you can get the glimmer back in your eye, and live on.

When I was a child, a narrow minded, bread on Catholicism child at that, I always felt intuitively certain of life recycling. I learned as a young adult that many people understand the concept, or at least know of it, in terms of reincarnation. There's so much energy and life and spirit within our bodies - it doesn't make sense that just because the equipment we've attained will get weathered and tired, the operators within would expire as well. No matter how exhausted or wise with age your engine driver may one day become, how could it/you (the you of you's) leave this beautiful world indefinitely? That's irrational, illogical, impossible in my mind. Life is recycled.

And since there are so many cycles within our present lives, it only makes that much more sense that we sprout and bloom and burst, exist, weaken, disconnect and surrender back into our hosts like flowers on a cherry blossom. We are born into someone new -something new- all the time, every decade, 2 years, day, or millisecond depending on your soul, and we stretch our arms out wide along side of our ever-yearning, craving, desirous minds; we LIVE, in the truest, most passionate sense of the word, like Jack Kerouac said, as "fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." and just like wicks, we can grow short and dim, we can burnout within our careers, our relationships, or whatever interest we are captive of. When our energy for one thing withers, it is not WE who are withered, not entirely, but it is a moment when we can reflect and redirect all the love within us onto something more deserving. The suits our minds were wearing are expired, and we can try on something new for size. A new life, a new direction. We are reborn within our bodies, witnessed by no one else but our own witness, our own engine driver...

Many many times, much more often than not, I forget who's driving my body along the roads. I assume I have control, I'm encompassed by my frontal lobe consciousness, my ego, which can be all together very empowering in an era of independence. But when crap happens or things change, my ego yelps and grasps at anything it can by it's fingernails in order to maintain it's power. I hate living in a state of powerlessness. I get depressed. I lose hope in civilization and I crave removal from my environment.

All this is the result of being governed by my smaller self, my temporary and finite sense of life dubbed Meredith. This is the self that burns so fiercely and can burn out just as fast. It's the suit my bigger Self wears just for appearances. Who's really in charge? Big Self. Always. Always way back/up there in my mind, resting in observation and smiling.

I believe there's a Big Self in each of us, and although we are each separated by bodies and experiences and interests, etc, the Big Self is but one. It's the earth our cherry-blossoms are born from and wither back into. When I'm very very lucky, my smaller self takes a break from burning and reaching outward, looks around, and stretches inward towards this great seer. When I get this chance, my small self obtains invaluable lessons and understanding, and I'm absorbed in a sense of peace that cascades through my veins like a much needed drink of water during a drought. My small self calls these rare moments "insights." In sight of the big picture where you, me, and the whole gang are united and never die.

When I'm looking inward like this, and I see the roots of our beings, I have achieved the Ultimate Freedom that Alexander Supertramp craved from the Alaskan Wilderness. Like him, I often ache for a change in scenery, an open and natural environment where the Big Self would seem to be more apparent. I can't lie, the wild does help. But it's not essential.

Looking for escape? Looking for understanding? Trying to grasp control and stop the pain of your internal rebirths?

Look no further.