A Journal of Movement
Two weeks to a year that you’ve been gone. Despite all the times I’ve thought of you or felt your presence, I’ve written so very little concerning you directly. I wonder where you are, what it’s like on the journey of death, and how it must have been to start that pilgrimage so deliberately, and hopelessly, as you did.
What up party people!? I’ve returned from my vow of digital abstenence and bring with me deep realizations, shallow epiphanies and nuggets of truth and dingleberry. While I saw some breathtaking beauty and some gut wrenching ugliness, most everything was just plain old beautiful ordinary life.
There is no lack of direction. No lack of obstacles. No lack of words.
What there is a lack of is courage, of belief and faith. I made this space for me. To expel and expand, to share, to communicate and hopefully, to understand.
But then it turned into a statement, and today there might not be anything more dangerous. As soon as you speak, as soon as you open your mouth you are wrong. There are no absolutes, no certainties. But that doesn’t’ stop us from trying to pin them down, about us, about the world.
I feel like there’s something caught in my throat. There is a confusing mix of ideas and emotions that I so badly want to let out and put into order. But even if I manage that task that seems so big, I still know it will be misunderstood, that my words will be mixed up, twisted, and magnified. The fear of the inevitable holds me back.
There is more, there is an excuse, a reasoning, a logic. It’s part of the story, but sometimes even I can’t remember it. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get enough of it out to convince you, to bridge the gap between us, I’m afraid you won’t understand, or worse, you won’t agree.
Life shoves you ahead. You fall, you get up. No. It’s the controlled fall. You’re bumping into things along the way and they set your trajectory. Maybe sometimes you can slow down before you fall on your face, but more often than not it’s those glancing blows that cause the most damage.
We’re stumbling. Sometimes it’s graceful and we’re running ahead, leaping over obstacles, other times we get caught up in the push and trip over our own feet. Along the way I’m trying to find you, to hold your hand and share my story, to remind and encourage each of us that were not alone. Because when I’m silent, I feel like I’m alone, running in the dark.
I’m home. Or as close to it as I can really get. What is home for anyone really – where you live? Where you are alive? Too many cliches about your heart or your hat… For the past week I’ve been with family and more than anywhere else, this feels like home. It’s not the place, the place is familiar in that visceral and sometimes oppressive way that where you grow up can be. No, home is family, it’s that bedrock of strength and support that is unwavering, that without, you become truly homeless. It’s the place you call or scamper to when you’re in trouble, it’s the people you call on when you need help, or return to when they need you.
Home is where you go to reconnect with the person you were, the one who helped make you who you are today. It’s been a little over a year since I’ve been here, that’s about my rotation, and with all the movement and change my life has seen in the past year, coming home is in so many ways just what I needed. A chance to check in with myself, my history, my present and future, to offer support and presence, to gather ideas and encouragement for the way forward. A lot has changed in the practical and emotional ways I live and experience life this last year, and taking a moment to better understand and appreciate what is happening has helped me take advantage of this momentum to keep my life moving in what I hope to be a positive direction. Is it? Well, only time will tell, but you may as well judge too. The approach is changing. Continue reading “The Evolution of an Approach.”
How many times have I thought about this place, considered its purpose, its import to me, and to you. How many sentences I’ve started, how many topics touched on. How many more have I thought of, rolled around in my mind only to let them dissipate like a clearing fog. There are so many things I want to share, but my temperament and aptitude prohibit me from offering anything less than what I deem perfect, despite the fact that when I finally do, it is. This is a journal, yet one that has been cultivated, curated, and curtailed to fit an ideal, or at least to be pushed in a direction. Yet it is still just a journal, and my beliefs, my ideals and values bleed into every word published. It is my journal.
I’ve been absent from this place for some time now. Over the course of the last year my life, and this project, have under gone some pretty drastic change and, quite honestly, I’m still struggling to understand the why, how, and what it means for moving forward. But every day brings new light as they say, and I continue to discover lessons and old wisdom that helps me understand. I don’t know what all this change means for the Nature of Motion, or even myself, but when I re-examine the mission, when I am reminded of all our adventures, challenges, discoveries, the style and satisfaction of our travel, I am heartened and inspired. Really, I just want to get back on the damn bike.