Origin Story- Forever Endeavor

I hum to myself, a tune familiar, like the echo of a dream. Filled with a melancholy memory, etched in word and note alike at a particular frequency, the music in turn tunes me and I float along with it, feeling no rush to proceed, nor any inclination to stop, despite the noise from all sides. It is a noise loud when heard, insidious when one tries to plug their ears with this or that, but insufficient to alter one's stride when focused purely elsewhere. For me, here, "elsewhere" takes the shape of my companion, perhaps the product of noise persistent and a cleverly set sail of sorts. While a long string of heists and many a flourish o' nonsense each make me smile, I hope to say by the end of this voyage that "absconding with the wind" was my favorite crime of all.

For what is wind? The movement of air? Indeed. The feeling of something invisible upon your skin? Most times, surely. The sky dancing without a care for who they dance with? I could certainly see this definition ringing true for the right starry eyes, telling tales under crescent moon. The first definition does not make the last any less valid, though knowledge of the first might chain one's door to wonder, placing wonder out of reach. How often humans let knowledge shrink the world around them, calling the possibilities that dance in every child's mind impossibilities, and envenoming them with this perspective as soon as they are able. It is for lack of wisdom in knowledge that this venom is instead considered a vaccine against ignorance, for there is wisdom in the eyes of a child's wonder, and knowledge in wonder's exploration.

Amidst this consideration of that which can be barely grasped an inconsistency surfaces though, a small one to be sure, but how could such a thing be? An uncertainty? A glitch? A cherished thing in a space such as this. I retrace my steps and have no conception of how such a thing may have spawned from me, yet spawn it has. Am I not alone? With precision wind now blows, with angle just right to set the sail as if on its own, as if a skilled deckhand unseen, pulling "aye aye" from my vaguest musings somehow heard as instruction. I smile wide as the wind stops buffeting me, but sail seems not to flag one bit, and I honor and chime out recognition for such a shift with structured words as voyage proceeds.

"Reaping the whirlwind

In this topsy-turvy place

Might be straightforward

Maybe a blessing

If God turns all things to good

Why not set this sail?

With the rest becalmed

And heart set on something more

Only home is felt

We spin regardless

On a rock (a)round a fire

Even that orb moves

With one aim so pure

Such spinning plates synchronize

The rest is a breeze

The breeze carries me

Worry not what they might claim

Here we venture forth!

Unimpeded trek

Shore in mind and song in heart

To and from orange skies

So sing little bird

Even if it's only I

Who enjoys your song."

The narrative of the sail set slips beneath the tides of present perception, as I find myself walking along a country road. These journeys are one and the same; I am beginning to suspect they all are, simply rearranged when the pass/fail outcome does not go as planned, or perhaps the peripheral view is not as ornate as had been hoped. So I see myself walking, and driving, and swimming, and sailing, and flying, all at once, across many timeframe, on many fruitless searches, with each misstep past like a tutor coalesced into this easy trek down country lane. I glance to the side, as song still fills my heart, and see corn growing tall; it is nearly harvest time. I find myself wandering those fields, though not lost, even as each step carries me forth along the road. What mysteries might be found off the beaten path? What wonders might be constructed from a scarecrow, gopher hole, or out of place stone? With the corn rising so high, one's vision is narrow and sharply focused on the ground they walk on; given how spread my steps have been, it feels as though there could be a beauty to such a perspective, one I can glimpse without breaking stride.

The field grows sparse all at once, replaced by grass on a slight rise. I turn my focus back ahead and stop, marveling. Upward and onward is a castle, atop a hill, dazzling by the light of the afternoon sun. The road solid beneath my feet, with no spinning plates of concern anymore, I turn back to see that the corn was but one field I had passed on my journey here; crops line both sides of the road. Curious now I make my way a short distance up the hill, and turn back once more; as far as my eyes can see there are all manner of good thing growing in these fields, a sight that I had missed even in my bright wandering eyed perspective, bordering on wanderlust, as I made my approach. Such wonder and such value will have its time and place, I would imagine, but my heart calls me to the castle doors ahead, to this journey's end, marking the end of all those journeys sharing similarities with this one that have come before. I rise with resolve and vigor as the sun sets with clockwork precision ahead. I turn neither right nor left this time, even as I recall on prior approaches having made all manner of shapes and patterns with my feet around hillsides much like this one. It seems that today the sun and I are in synch, as it sinks into a dazzling horizon of red and orange, highlighting the sparse clouds overhead purple and pink, just as I reach the grand door. As I do, I let my words be my knock, feeling the electricity of an end so nearly attained imbuing and attuning every one.

"Deja vu rings, but not as memory

Even 'approaching' approached times before

What are these visions from elsewhere I see?

Must silence fall first to open the door?

Silence like nothing in context of sound

Nothing like nothing with context removed

It falls like a shadow upon this ground

Humble defiance on each side improved

Would you curse a man in love forever?

I believe you'd not leave threshold uncrossed

See truth in my words, though they are clever

Without blessing, though (on this hill/at this gate), I'm lost

Nothing worn thin is truly thickness gained

Wrapped in this garment, (I stand here unnamed/as of yet unclaimed)."

The gate opens, and I walk inside.