Stalemate Where I Stand
Despite my best efforts, I am still standing motionless in the midst of so many unfamiliar trees. The sun rises and sets around me like a slow methodical heartbeat. I’ve lost interest in trying to measure the pulse of it as the days turn into weeks, which seem like an eternity. I want to take a step forward. I want it and need it in the same way life needs oxygen, but my fear has me paralyzed. I’m afraid of moving in the wrong direction, afraid that each step I take will lead me deeper into these woods and not out of them. But even more terrifying than that, is the notion that moving will somehow erase the memories I have collected. As if the brain has a finite amount of storage, and learning a new path will over-write something else – Something I’m not ready to part with.
All these long moments are filled with thinking, endless amounts of thinking. I have been puzzling my way through the decision of which way to go and I have flashes of inspiration where it all seems so perfectly clear. I look up and see the rays of the sun shining through the canopy and feel certain I know which way is west. But just as I summon the courage to take that step my heart experiences another aftershock of the shift, and my body recoils. The motion causes my stomach to lurch and the idea of moving again makes me physically sick. So I remain…still.
All of this thinking coupled with the helpless feeling of being lost and alone is wreaking havoc on my body. My desire to hold on to what I want is at war with the notion of letting go. It’s a relentless conflict that is wearing me down and I’m struggling with it every second that I am awake. The only thing that brings me peace is knowing that with another beat of the sun’s heart I will find sweet relief in sleep. As I lay down on this semi-solid ground, I find solace in the fact that my dreams can release me, that I will be free, if only for a short while, to exist somewhere away from here.
And when I wake, it will be another day, and maybe that will be the day I can start to move again…
ShySpark 