The Stillness of the Walk

The morning was spent in the thick of it. Not on the path, but in the stillness of a coffee shop, wading through a sucking stinking sinking mud that has been my companion for a very long time. I know I am in the wilderness, but the paradox is that this place of my choosing, this natural habitat of the hunter-gatherer, is also a place where I cannot connect.

I am an exile who has chosen exile. The very sanity I have found on this journey—the belief that my path is true and the world I left behind is insane—is what makes me so isolated. The clarity I have about my contradictions, the Fatigue I feel from fighting the deeply flawed conceits of my own body, is not a sign of my failure, but of my strength. The peace I am to find is not waiting for me at the end of the road; it must be found right here and right now, in the very mud I am trying to walk out of.

It seems I have to learn to be a happy Sisyphus, to find dignity in the struggle of the climb, even knowing the stone will roll back down. The worth of the pilgrimage is not in the end, but in the beginning. It is the courageous act of walking, knowing that the journey is both a hastening toward a home that awaits and an acceptance that home is already here, in the midst of the chaos...