Can I tell you a story? It’s a good story, I promise. You’re in it. You have to be. It’s about you after all. Maybe it’s more correct to say the story IS you. And therefore it just doesn’t work without you. You need to be here, to be a part of it, for me to tell it.
So it’s about us, really. These versions of us, the current…contexts of us. You know, the context we both are in now. These finite consciousnesses that are the fleshy manifestations of our infinite, divine essences. Yeah, it’s that kind of story: a new-age, spiritual, up-the-tree-and-across-the-abyss, woo-woo story. But it’s true, every bit of it, though you may not believe the whole thing despite it being about you.
And a bit about me—we are partners in this endeavor, you and I. Both with equal and essential—but different—roles: me as the writer and you the reader. Not that the role of the reader is required for every bit of writing, of course. It’s obvious that words can be put to the page as a form of cathartic self healing, a way of evicting deep or dark concepts and all their great and heavy baggage from the soul by trapping them in the shape of letters, closing them in between the covers of a journal, and tucking such a book onto a shelf or into a drawer. Some words and symbols are scrawled with the understanding that they’ll never be seen by the eyes of our fellow humans but rather released into the aether—likely using a fiery portal to transform them from a physical representation into willful intention that resonates into the universe.
This is neither a secret journal nor sigil spell. It has no power nor purpose without you. So I hope you might indulge me a little longer. After all, if you’ve gotten to this point, I assume you’ve already meandered alongside me through a poem and a handful of whimsical, almost nonsensical, chapters of rambling. We’re closing in on the end, my friend! Mount Doom is in sight, and we only have a short ways to go before we toss in this golden circle and are rid of it forever.
And I promise, unlike that series, you’ll not need to get through six different endings before the final credits play. We’ll have a clean break at the end of this, and I think a rather straightforward path through. No more spirals and gears and confusing tangents birthed from a sideways mind! No pitfalls or pit stops or peach pits, not a one!
It won’t be the quickest journey. I am the Writer in this venture, and by now you should be well aware that verbosity is my curse. No doubt we’ll spend the occasional moment glancing backward in reflection upon points and concepts already passed in those previous volumes. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills, and my wheel has been winding, unwinding, rewinding, neverminding for months now!
Nor will it be a tidy journey. I’ll stumble along the way, surely, and make a right mess of things several times before the end. I’m far from Perfection, as we’ve already discussed. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve (a benefit of being The Writer, you see!) that I think will keep us moving in the right direction and will help me smooth out any bumps in the road.
My hope—my goal—is that you will find value in this journey together. That at the end, when we part ways, you’ll feel the time well spent, and you’ll not give a moment’s thought to that great distance I stand from Perfection.
And what a great place to start our journey, actually! Let us start at Perfection and move outward toward the fringe where I landed.
We all have an idea of what Perfection looks like, and it being a social construct of sorts, there’s a commonality in how everyone sees Perfection. And yet, each of us view Perfection differently. Have you seen Perfection? Can you call to your mind, right now, what Perfection looks like for you? What it feels like? And what you feel like viewing Perfection? Do you see you looking back?
I think you should. I hope you do. At least a little bit. I know I do. See you, I mean. More you than me. Vague wisps of you. Perfection has ever been a moving target, and as such always blurred and shifting from that momentum. But in that fluid form there is the hint of you.
You know that I think you’re intelligent-hilarious-beautiful-charismatic-joyous-wise-magical-brave-strong-fierce.
Ah, a failed attempt at sending out a wordless burst of information and emotion. I knew I couldn’t do it—it was not a gift given to me this time around!—but I had to try because there’s not one word created to encapsulate all of you. I wish there were, but communicating by creating vibrations in the air is greatly limited. So too the changing expressions of the face and sweeping gestures of the arms and slight twists and turns of the body. They add context, sure, but true understanding cannot be reached that way. And I wanted you to truly understand my meaning.
Even this…experience…lacks so much of that context: No hands nor lips nor emotions leaking from the eyes. The medium through which you engage with this story varies, be it the vibrations digitized for near perfect replication later or the vibrations petrified as symbols on a flat surface. The very thing I do now—right/write now—is so frail….
But nevermind. Let me take note of these momentous limitations as I rewind and try again.
Given such restrictions, I’ll need to make do with a single, flimsy word to describe you. Hmmm…How about…awesome? Yes, I’ll use awesome to describe the you that exists inside my mind—as true a you as your own version of you. Just fewer points of reference, mine.
Awesome! A word of great significance to me, greater than most others in this language, but to understand why…that requires knowing me and my true designation. And if you’ve heard my awesome jest, well, that makes this use of awesome even more true in this context! But nevermind. Nevermind! We’ve not the time to unwind all the layers and develop all the characters in that play on words.
So let’s rewind again, just a step: I think you are awesome!
But you know that, right? I hope you do. I tried to tell you, but you know me (at least, I hope you do…): There’s no telling if I got that across.
But other people tell you the same. I’ve seen/heard/witnessed it. You don’t need that from me. You don’t need me for that. Or anything, really. I am redundant. Worse than, actually, if you understood…”them”…but not me when I attempted to communicate.
I’m pretty sure you know you are awesome. Like deep down, you know it, you feel it. It is true.
Right?
Not every moment of every day, no not like that! I don’t think you think like that! That’s my point!
And that’s my point: I’ve missed again. Can I just rewin—no? Not this time? Ever forward then, stumbling.
Conversely: Ever stumbling then, forward. It goes both ways, as you (cannot) know.
I hope you know. That you really know, you know? Before the time when I …or when you…or when we…lose…context. I hope you feel it, even just for a moment, how awesome you are.
If I had the gift to push that into—Rewind!—to imbue that—Rewind!—If I had a way to show you, so that you could see how much you matter to me—Rewind!—the positivity you’ve brought into my—Rewind!—you’ve brought into so many people’s lives—REWIND!
I wish you could feel not just how loved you are but also how much you deserve it. You really are awesome.
And I’m glad for the circumstances that brought our paths together. However short this stumbling walk will be. And we don’t yet know, do we?, how many steps we’ll take together from our meeting to our End. It seems an endless path lies before us, a road that stretches ever into the unreachable horizon.
At least, that’s how it looks from this vantage. And that’s good! That’s necessary! Most wanderers won’t do well in their travels if they knew how many steps they get to take. And many would enjoy the journey so much less knowing exactly when and where it would end. The infinity of possibility is what makes this march an exciting adventure!
And in the end, we get the same as everyone else: A lifetime. Death said that. One of her incarnations anyway. The one I hope to embrace when my journey is done.
Nevermind, a quick rewind and we’ll be back on our way.
We can’t let the infinite span make us complacent. For this context, this version of you and me, that endless path is an illusion. And we only have a limited time with each other to laugh, to communicate, to bring joy to each others’ journeys.
None of us know for certain what happens when we cast off this context and unwind ourselves back into the divine. Do we unwind/wind and try again another time? Or is it just…nevermind–goodbye?
Me? I think we’re spiraling, you and I. This isn’t the first time for us to walk side by side nor do I think it will be the last. If our spirals should circle too wide, take us too far from each other this time and we never find the gravity to bring us into an orbit for long enough…well…I’ll feel a bit of sorrow for that, for this me that didn’t get a greater opportunity to know this you, to bask in your awesomeness and to see you glow all the more—cause I know you can, I can see the truth of your brightness not yet unleashed.
I have hope for a future you and me. That another time, another context of you and I will travel together farther and longer over their paths. That me—this me—some version me!—will be there when you shine. And it will be glorious being a part of your life.
But for now, we’ve walked this far together and still have a little left to go as our time continues to unwind. I’m here for you. I hope you know that, for now and for as long as I maintain this context, I am here if you need. And I promise to give you what I can.
All I ask in return is that you keep being awesome. You keep shining your light to those in your orbit (without overreaching and giving too much of yourself. I know you! You’ll do that for those you care about, admit it!)
That’s all we can do: Bring our light into our sphere and brighten the lives closest to us. And by the principles of…I don’t know, Venn diagrams, I guess…everyone can live in brightness without any one of us needing to burn ourselves out.
Thank you for sharing this story of you with me. As I said at the start, I couldn’t have done it without you. It would have been meaningless without you! All of it.
For your role in the context of me, every context of me, I am eternally grateful.
Ah, now our time has come to an end and our paths diverge. A clean break as promised, as you take your steps and me mine along disparate roads. Good luck and Godspeed, my friend. I hope our paths wind back again—at least one more time before either Ends—but if not…. I pray we recognize each other—even if it’s just the spark of you and I—when the gravity of our next context pulls us back together and realigns our spiraling selves.
Until then…shine!