Restless Wanderings
I took to walking in high school. Throughout ninth and tenth grade, I sneaked outside after ten and walked around the local neighborhoods, watching televisions flicker in windows, dodging headlights, and rubbing my hands in the soft grass, looking for dew. I generally came in around one, always trying to find new paths to tread. I hate cars, so I always welcomed the still air and idle intersections, and the romance of the chill, silver-tinged air reminded me of Robert Frost:
"I have been one acquainted with the night
I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light."
I eventually took to walking in the daylight as my walks lengthened. I would begin with the sun peering high over treetops cars racing home for supper, everyone always rushing for bit with after-work obligations. Eventually these stilled, the shadows deepened, and the eaves of endless houses eclipsed the sun. The angle cast an eery light. Nothing stirred. The rustic light and quiet streets harbored a lonesome feeling, a bit like Johnny Cash's song about Sunday Morning Sidewalks:
"There ain't nothing short of dyin'
Half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleeping city sidewalk..."
At Bonas I walked along the river trail for hours, sometimes devouring a day with footfalls and riverside reading. I never had a destination. I just kept walking away, dreading the return.
I often sit at the piano bench, my fingers searching scales for a theme to grasp. The restless notes soften into soundscapes, a world keeping me occupied until it dissolves and dies. I improvise for hours. I spill shocks of of emotion against chords, hearing the collision. I feet my friends form as melody, my heartbeat as a base. I have no aim, but hours on the bench lead me somewhere. A bit like walking. Or writing. Or reading.
These restless wanderings dent my life with longing. Once in high school I had a free period, so I walked in the nearby graveyard for an hour and returned for creative writing. No one said anything. Simple car trips (like running to the store) leave me empty when we roll back into the driveway. I wish it were longer.
I guess it's the youthful will to go out and travel. But it seems deeper, like Siddhartha's quest to find that missing piece within. I have a tendency to romanticize long voyages, the kind that populate fantasy novels or historical fiction, and I think about the Samyana's, Hindu holy men who renounce the roof to live a nomadic life beneath the stars. They never reach a destination, but remain spiritual wanderers throughout the sublime cycle of death an rebirth.
I long to take up my backpack and walk. I remember my uncle talking to me once, pointing out the sunset. "One day I just want to walk that way and see where it goes," he said. "I'm not sure if I'd come back." I think his age lends a different lens of meaning to wandering, but the restlessness seems the same. We both are missing something; why else would we desire to take up a bag and walk away? It's like climbing mountains. I long to rise above it all, taste the clouds, and feel the pure silence again.
These dreams always seem to fall beneath the shuffle of reality, but they keep rising again. They keep prodding me to act, driving my feet unto long walks, driving my hands into endless rustles on the piano. I feel that I'll never reach the end of these restless wanderings. I'll always keep searching or exploring.
But, I don't care. Like the car outings, the road trumps the destination.
"I have been one acquainted with the night
I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light."
I eventually took to walking in the daylight as my walks lengthened. I would begin with the sun peering high over treetops cars racing home for supper, everyone always rushing for bit with after-work obligations. Eventually these stilled, the shadows deepened, and the eaves of endless houses eclipsed the sun. The angle cast an eery light. Nothing stirred. The rustic light and quiet streets harbored a lonesome feeling, a bit like Johnny Cash's song about Sunday Morning Sidewalks:
"There ain't nothing short of dyin'
Half as lonesome as the sound
Of a sleeping city sidewalk..."
At Bonas I walked along the river trail for hours, sometimes devouring a day with footfalls and riverside reading. I never had a destination. I just kept walking away, dreading the return.
I often sit at the piano bench, my fingers searching scales for a theme to grasp. The restless notes soften into soundscapes, a world keeping me occupied until it dissolves and dies. I improvise for hours. I spill shocks of of emotion against chords, hearing the collision. I feet my friends form as melody, my heartbeat as a base. I have no aim, but hours on the bench lead me somewhere. A bit like walking. Or writing. Or reading.
These restless wanderings dent my life with longing. Once in high school I had a free period, so I walked in the nearby graveyard for an hour and returned for creative writing. No one said anything. Simple car trips (like running to the store) leave me empty when we roll back into the driveway. I wish it were longer.
I guess it's the youthful will to go out and travel. But it seems deeper, like Siddhartha's quest to find that missing piece within. I have a tendency to romanticize long voyages, the kind that populate fantasy novels or historical fiction, and I think about the Samyana's, Hindu holy men who renounce the roof to live a nomadic life beneath the stars. They never reach a destination, but remain spiritual wanderers throughout the sublime cycle of death an rebirth.
I long to take up my backpack and walk. I remember my uncle talking to me once, pointing out the sunset. "One day I just want to walk that way and see where it goes," he said. "I'm not sure if I'd come back." I think his age lends a different lens of meaning to wandering, but the restlessness seems the same. We both are missing something; why else would we desire to take up a bag and walk away? It's like climbing mountains. I long to rise above it all, taste the clouds, and feel the pure silence again.
These dreams always seem to fall beneath the shuffle of reality, but they keep rising again. They keep prodding me to act, driving my feet unto long walks, driving my hands into endless rustles on the piano. I feel that I'll never reach the end of these restless wanderings. I'll always keep searching or exploring.
But, I don't care. Like the car outings, the road trumps the destination.