(Updated with edits. Original: June 3, 2012)
Blogging comes far less naturally to me than I had expected, or at least I am unable to tap into my blogging mind as easily as expected when I'm on the road. It seems such movement takes the wind out of me - or fills me with only wind, you be the judge. However, so as to not neglect this blog once more, below I've present three vignettes, if you will - though they are not so cohesive, simply a few forms of processing during a time when it is difficult, as they themselves illustrate. Good luck! And if you've had such trouble processing during a cross-cultural experience, chime in. As for those heading into a cross-cultural experience, no that homeness doesn't always come quickly, so take time to gather the twigs for your developing nest, be intentional about your placedness.
A lazy river, unstirred by the rapids of change develops a stage of silt on its floor. Small particles of passers-by that didn't care to pass too quickly by, but would rather stick around do so and mull it over. Much like silt is my mind, and pity this blog for lack of it settling as I travel. We've now had our stay in Amsterdam (only to return in a few weeks), Santiago (to return someday), and now we're making our stay in Paris (where my thoughts may stay for a while). Stirring, stirring these weeks are and will continue to be. While this motion brings before my perception emotions that may have been hidden in the layers of days passed, so too is my vision of the present blurred by the stirring of that which had been settled. Place. Home. These have been the things of my consideration and philosophizing for the past couple of years since my first YHM experience. One might think that colliding with these first feelings could bring me reeling back to my original inspiration, but this second experience likens itself more to a veil than as visionary. Writers call it writer's block, so what phrase should a sculptor use? Chisel friction perhaps. But that sounds a bit odd, doesn't it. Sculptor's shock, perhaps. When you've stood still but all the world moves about you, like the optic all illusion of the forest taken haste around you as you rest during a walk; even the most rooted of identifiers, so much of what has been established as thick, noble, and tall as a forest, ( even nuances dance under the all-knowing sun) - that which stood still as you marched now marches with banners of confusion, demanding surrrender to un-knowing. Am I moving or is it all that is within me? Do I move it or does it move me? And why the heck are all these trees dancing?
So what am I discovering as I wade through this silty pool of a mind? Ignorance. Density. Fragility. I'm a bit brittle, perhaps. A starfish made too familiar with the sun when the surf is just coming in. How shall I bend without breaking in this new-old world?
*****
Paris has a lot of stairs. Not something I imagined. For me Paris was just going to be an endless lane of boulangeries (bakeries, foundaries of the famous baguette) and cafés, with a nice tower in the middle. But, in fact, to get everywhere else in the city there is a great metro and a lot of stairways. The welcoming committee for Jon and I as we got off the metro our first night was a hike of 4-5 stories of steps in the spiral fashion, like walking up the shaft of a screw before we could huff and puff fresh air. Tired, winded, and a little discombobulated, we made our way up the 2 additional flights up from the station to get to our street. That's how the Perisians can stay friendly with both croissants and their bathroom scale I suppose - the stairway, the divine intercessor. But, what are stairways for anyway? The Lord chose not to give us wings for a reason, I suppose. Stairs mean presence. Work for worth. If you are to gain any height, any glory, any sight, then you shall become united with its derivation. Now, stairways are not natural, but stepping is. What stairs do is allow the geometry of our body allow us to displace perpendicular force through the circular muscular movement via our hips. On an organic hill, we place angular, invented steps so that the angles and archs natural to our bodies' movements may be made efficient for mounting a curvature that juxtaposes our stable nature, said hill per se. Invention and innovation thus facilitate achievement by translating between natures. But, rather than this keep this a writing game for me and torture for you, let me invite you into something: intercession. Invent something today - unite two natures that we might more easily experience grace, even if it leaves us huffing and puffing.
*****
Theoretically, a gravitational singularity is a physical phenomenon where matter has infinite density and zero volume. Such phenomena are rare, as you can imagine, and the most popular idea derived from such theory is the "big bang," however some ideas about black holes are also contingent on singularity. However rare in physics, I'd pose that this is a common experience for the traveler, metaphysically speaking. When moving at the velocity demanded of me for such an excursion as this, I tend to lose all essential volume of intelligent clarity and often find myself within a vacuum of progressive processing, and rather liken myself to a floating phenomena, vacated of value, and infinitely dense in need of expansion. The hope, then, is that one day, or in some moment of clairvoyance and creativity, all my past, pressured exisitance will come in full display; introspection, the deep-space expedition that it is, will no longer be necessary since before me will expand a personality spectaculare. But, for now I wait in my infinite density and ignorance of the man I'm becoming, that clandestine character within, a vacuole of vital elements, waiting for the Lord to thunder, "Let there be light!" And thus open these weary wander's eyes.
If any such lightening crack should sunder this silty veil, you'll be the first to know. Bear with me folks, expressing life from the road comes slowly to me, pray for clarity. I've never been one to accept "I don't know" as an answer to the question "How are you doing?"
No comments:
Post a Comment