This morning I woke up, as usual, to the sounds of three mule deer drifting silently past my window. I could feel their eyes on me, curiously surveying the human that lays out their needs to survive winter's long journey.
Reaching my foot across the bed, I could feel the ice chill of the emptiness across from me, and suddenly the loneliness rushed across me like an incoming tide of emotional turbulence. I sat up and stared at my Damsel fish, Daisy, who patrols her tank in solitary fury, and saw her watching me, waiting for attention. I fed her as usual, she takes her food from my hand, and saw there was an emerald crab, lifeless, on the bottom of the aquarium. I was immediately sad, grief stricken at the crab's death. It was a life that had passed into eternity unnoticed in the night, but a life for whom there was grief at the passing.
Sipping my coffee as I lay in bed, the sun found its usual way into the room, and made its crazy mural of shadows across the bed. I like to watch them mutate into myriad forms, imagining all manner of things in the changing shapes. It is like living art. But that life only happens where I sleep. The other side of the bed always stays the same, lifeless, unchanging, and the shadows merely grow old with the day until they vanish. The realization filled me with grief at the loneliness I felt.
We, none of us, are meant to be alone. We all wish for that kindred spirit that is meant to co-exist with us. We all seek that wonderful affirmation that says we are okay, and that we are truly worthwhile. For me, I stare ahead at the path my life is taking, and find myself constantly wondering why mine is so solitary. I know as an intelligent being, that there are others out there whose journeys are likewise solitary, and who ask the why of it, but how does one find the map to changing it? How does one find the kindred spirit whose own journey is meant to parallel our own?
Before life passes me over, and I am returned to the breath of the air that surrounds us all, I would like to feel - just one more time - the touch of someone else on my being. I would like to watch in awe at the artwork of shadows on the other side of my bed, carved out by a presence, not my own...
Reaching my foot across the bed, I could feel the ice chill of the emptiness across from me, and suddenly the loneliness rushed across me like an incoming tide of emotional turbulence. I sat up and stared at my Damsel fish, Daisy, who patrols her tank in solitary fury, and saw her watching me, waiting for attention. I fed her as usual, she takes her food from my hand, and saw there was an emerald crab, lifeless, on the bottom of the aquarium. I was immediately sad, grief stricken at the crab's death. It was a life that had passed into eternity unnoticed in the night, but a life for whom there was grief at the passing.
Sipping my coffee as I lay in bed, the sun found its usual way into the room, and made its crazy mural of shadows across the bed. I like to watch them mutate into myriad forms, imagining all manner of things in the changing shapes. It is like living art. But that life only happens where I sleep. The other side of the bed always stays the same, lifeless, unchanging, and the shadows merely grow old with the day until they vanish. The realization filled me with grief at the loneliness I felt.
We, none of us, are meant to be alone. We all wish for that kindred spirit that is meant to co-exist with us. We all seek that wonderful affirmation that says we are okay, and that we are truly worthwhile. For me, I stare ahead at the path my life is taking, and find myself constantly wondering why mine is so solitary. I know as an intelligent being, that there are others out there whose journeys are likewise solitary, and who ask the why of it, but how does one find the map to changing it? How does one find the kindred spirit whose own journey is meant to parallel our own?
Before life passes me over, and I am returned to the breath of the air that surrounds us all, I would like to feel - just one more time - the touch of someone else on my being. I would like to watch in awe at the artwork of shadows on the other side of my bed, carved out by a presence, not my own...