The Horizon

I can see it, just faintly, and far off ahead. It started off as a ripple, just a wave in the smooth unbroken line, but something caught my eye. Maybe it was the light, there was a short time early in the morning when the rising sun would illuminate a few jagged peaks, a curious fold in the landscape. It drew me in.

Sometimes I find myself on a ridge, scared that I won’t be able to stop. That I’ve packed enough just for the day, but this desire, the need for more won’t be fulfilled, and I’ll walk and walk until I can’t make my way back. There’s a voice that tells me I can make it, that I’m strong enough to go forward until my legs give out and that I’ll still be able to make it back home broken and spent but safe. I know I can’t trust this voice, but…

It’s silly I know, like a dream where I’m not in control, yet it’s still there, and now it’s kind of like I’ve found myself in it. I’ve walked, the horizon keeps pulling me towards it, the need to discover, and as I draw closer, I take in the new world around me and soak in the landscape like a teaching.

But at some point it comes, the desire to return. To go home, my bed, build a fire, sit with you and share a bottle of wine, tell you what I’ve seen and ask you what you think it means. But it’s happened, I’ve come to far and there’s no going back. The fear stabs me like a knife: alone. I’ve got to make a new home in the cold, build it from scratch even when I feel like I’ve left behind every tool I had.

Slowly now, the reality sets in. What I’ve done, what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m here. Going back will be harder than I imagined in the first place. In so many ways what I left behind is already gone, its fabric unknowingly pulled apart like I had a single thread caught on me when I left.

The horizon has closed in around me. The reality of my arrival. It’s a beautiful and convoluted landscape that I know can provide a lifetime of satisfaction, and yet I’m left wondering where the last one was left, and when the next horizon might draw me away. Even as the thread I carried along ties itself into a new knot, a new fabric, I’m afraid, cautious, the pain and loss of the last tapestry still fresh. As such these first knots are loose, irregular, ugly.

Analogies aside, I’ve been considering these themes often recently. Growth, progress, exploration. Home, community, love and connection. How they balance and effect my ambitions, my decisions. How sometimes they’re mutually exclusive, and sometimes they can exist together at once. But most importantly I’ve been considering where they fall in my life, in importance and affection. I’ve always had the need for adventure, for exploration and growth, but never before have I felt such a hole left by the absence of a community.

I’m left wondering how it will be resolved, while acknowledging how much patience will be required to find out. I’m left wondering how I can find balance, while taking every step, how I can let go of connotations and preconceptions with every consideration. I’m caught, wanting to go forward and back, conflicted about either direction, and in a groundless, beautiful way, I’ve found myself here, exactly where I am.