Sunday, May 13, 2012

Butterfly Colors Continued

You’re going to have to choose. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, you have to choose. It isn’t easy, that choice. And people wait. And people hope. For us to choose. For us to say yes. So that we can start living. And realize how precious time is. How precious those things about life are that we can’t grasp when we’re not sick, when we think we have everything, when we believe in only what we see, when we aren’t forced to tell ourselves the truth.

Some of the paths that we choose to take look polished, pristine, and safe. Some are ambiguous because they're a little narrower, are comprised of gravel instead of blacktop, and curve around the shadows of things we can't see unless we keep following what has already been laid out for us. A few don't exist yet because we're the ones who are going to have to break the ground and carve them out. The few of us who spend the time to envision something that hasn't been done yet, and who might make it a little easier for those who come after us, are the ones that travel alone.

The last stretch of that path was the toughest because the garden was so near. You could say that you saw it without ever walking in it, or sitting on its benches, or touching its orange red flowers, or staring at the city through the outlines of two palm trees, or watching the bird bounce up and down into the valley on a carpet of wind. But that wasn’t what she wanted--a side view or an almost there feel. So there went her left foot, and then her right, and then her left again. She turned on the spicket of water, filling her mouth, her throat, her stomach. It tasted a little like the bronze metal it had come from, but it was cool enough to splash and rub against her skin. Dante’s View, read the sign. Like Dante’s Inferno, she thought. Tricky to get to without a map or a GPS. But like any destination without a blueprint, an adventurous surprise.

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