“My Own Collusion, or:
Rumi on Breadcrumbs”
Of late - I have noticed - I
pick up stones quite a bit.
Marking off my wanderings
with mementos from the ground.
Stones holding a hint of the
wonder I explore. Pebbles
that remind me of the days’
conquests and finds.
A pocket of cairns meant
to notch off my exploits as
I amble across this life. This
life I have been working at
with diligent attention - more
so often these days.
This one reminds me of a view,
that one of a mighty torrent. This
one of a mountain, and that one
of the purpling-green ocean waves.
Fondling their solid weight one
crumbles and I begin to notice
that the stones I thought I was
picking up were breadcrumbs
all along. Breadcrumbs I had
laid down - purposefully on my
own - so I could always find my
way back home. Find a place of
common comfort when all else
seemed lost or out of focus.
It seems my aging heart was drawing
me backward to places I had been.
And beyond my own figuring I was
retracing steps long ago trod.
Not stones of the new lands
I was leaning toward and
uncovering. Not pebbles of dreaming
and “perhapses”. Not placeholders used
to imagine the unknown. Not seeds
of the adventures unseen or untasted.
I had picked up tokens of where I had
already been.
These were not harbingers of where
I was going. Not calling me forward
into the new I would do; rather, calling
me back to the known places where
I had been. Somewhere my heart had
taken up the map and had fooled my
head into thinking it was in charge.
And, that somewhere was in the
terminus of midlife - the far side
of Dante’s DARK WOOD.
Now was apparently the time I needed
to yearn for comfort, not the time I
needed to long to explore. My heart
had been in collusion all along with
my mind, but one day took it by force.
Feeding me on the warmth of the
familiar it lured me back to places
of a safe and antiseptic recapitulation.
No wonder I found this way so charming
and delightful. I stood in my own boot
prints from days gone by. Reveling on the
recognizable and not so much revealing
what was remote. Back. Always back.
Back to where the quilts were made of
patches from my jeans and flannel. Where
every new staircase led to the art studio
on Saturday mornings - slipping a five
into the cigar box before climbing the steps
of the loft to create. Back to the same old
fishing holes, gardens, trap lines, and recipes,
friends and acquaintances, family and heroes.
Entwining me in a warp and weft of my very
own repast and repose I was ensnared by a
loving side of my own self. A soulful force
held sway on what I needed. But, from within.
My days had shifted to an anadromous
return. The Hansel and Gretel of my own
SELF worked hard at keeping me in the
shadows - just beyond knowing what it
was up to. It was feeding me my own self.
I have been digesting the nourishment I
have stored from a life lived. No wonder
now why I have been pleased as Punch.
There is in us a GREATNESS we only
catch a glimpse of once or twice. An
aroma we whiff which causes us to turn
our head. Trust THIS greatness.
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