There Is No Going Back

"He'd been half expecting, all these weeks, that reaching the place where he'd grown up would mean something: that he'd find some kind of safety there. Some kind of answers. As though if he could only lie down for a nap in his own bed, he'd wake up to find that the nightmare he'd lived -- losing his family, his youth, his faith -- had been only a hypnoid fantasy sparked by teenage hormones and an undigested dinner. Is anything worse than finally reaching home, and finding that you're still lost?"

-- excerpt from "Traitor" by Matthew Stover

As if by whisk of the wind, my memories float back to me... of days long past and people forever changed. It is often in times of these I retreat with the power of these reveries. But time is not always so kind to the mind, and memories seem to forever remind of the days lost in the breeze.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm in the emotional company of Dogen and Buddha, or at least it feels that way. As a child who moved around with almost every passing year, change became the truth of the matter. And even though I knew that nothing would ever last, because of course nothing ever does, sometimes I couldn't really help but feel as though it should.

I know that's wrong. Of course I do now. The past few years couldn't have made it any clearer.

The point is that I just feel that I won't have a home, ever, like those around me seem to have. And before that sounds too depressing, let me explain. Everyone seems to identify with where they live, their home, like an intimate love or something so close to them that nothing could ever seem to rip it away. I mean, I relate, I felt this way once, powerfully. But I have left every specific home a stranger, only to become a foreigner of another land. Why is this, I would ask myself?

The truth is that you can never go back.

You can never go back to the way it once was. You've changed. So much has changed. An acorn might enjoy becoming a tree, but when it finally does become one, no amount of longing can return it back to the acorn it once was. I go through the halls of my old house, and new paint has dried the walls. I look around my room a stranger. Time has moved along. Oh, it is only seasonal.....

But do you know what I do not feel a stranger at? The human face. The moment I'm in. When I take a breath, see a smile or tear, feel the breeze, I don't feel like a stranger. 'Cause I'm letting it happen, I'm going along with the season. I'm swimming with the current. It really is all only seasonal....

What seems so sad and tragic ends up being amazingly the opposite however. I have discovered -- that's the gift of nature. If you could go back, if you could get everything you wanted, if you could live forever, you would be more bored than a wooden stump. Where is the fun in that? Life is constant change, constant action, constant significance. Most of us just miss it. We've either got our eyes on the rearview mirror or the distance ahead. But there, we miss it. It is like a joke only told once, that you miss. That is every moment.

Do you know what is lovely? People. The Earth. My cat. The changing of the seasons. The flash of a car. The breath of a moment, the flutter of wind, the quickening of a heart. That is lovely. That is more beautiful than I can ever describe. That's my home. I don't need a house. I'd like one, but that won't just be my home. Everything is my home. Everywhere I am is my home.

And the people? Oh my. Have you not seen them, talked to them, felt them there? It is so sad so many people are so miserable, and I know why they are miserable. It's the same reason I was miserable, and still occasionally am. Longing. For the past, the future, whatever. Well, all we have is now. Feel that, and you have no further problems. : )

I'm in love right now. In love, with one out there, and the one all around. The words escape my mind when the feeling of the world overwhelms me. And the one all around is the Universe. Do I dislike sometimes? Yeah. Does it get me down, let me down, send me into sadness? Yeah. But I love it anyway. Because it's me. And what about the other? Simply, words aren't enough! It reminds me of the preciousness of my existence. How precious! I cherish more now everything I live, and I can't thank enough.

Life is so fleeting. None of us really know where we are going. None of us really know where we've been. But it is within each of our power to know where we are. That is the gift, that is the discovery. It is the ultimate trick of the Universe! So many of us have fallen for it. But there are a few, like one I met not so long ago, that give me hope -- they've gotten the joke, and though they laugh and cry, this is the greatest part of their being. : )