The next time you have a moment to yourself, close your eyes. Take a few long slow breaths. Let the world melt away from its tight grip on your heart. Just breathe.
Imagine you are standing at the side of a long road that stretches as far as you can see in either direction. You know this road well. Every step of your life has been taken on this road. Even now, at the side of the road, you know that every step you have yet to take will be on this road.
There are signposts along the road. Some are large, familiar billboards and some are tiny, like little flowers that mark each step you have taken. The ones close to you are easy to read. Off in the distance, some are faded and worn, or so small that you cannot quite read what they say. In the other direction, they are the same. Close to you, you can see what is up ahead with clarity. Farther up the road the signs are indistinct.
As you take another breath and your heart pumps relief through your body, the hills and valleys around you seem to breathe along with you. There are other landmarks that come into view. Far off mountains that fill you with hope; a beautiful lake lined with your most precious moments. You recall a small house on the roadside that always seems to be there when you need rest.
There are people out there on the road. Some stand next to the signs, some are waiting patiently for you to resume your journey. Some are climbing into a bag that you carry with you wherever you go.
Take another long, slow breath. Stay awhile. I have something to teach you about this road.
I can hear you, dear reader, thinking what could you possibly teach me about my own road that snakes through my heart and mind, and contains my world? Well, dearest, stay and find out.
We deal in metaphor. This road is not excluded from that deal. It isn't just a description of your journey through it. It is you. It is your body, spread out from horizon to horizon, from then to when. As you travel down this road, so does your past and future. Here, just outside that unrelenting time and space, you can move to any point on this road you like. You just have to think about it. Do you remember?
You have always been doing this. Every moment of your life is painted with the colours of your many places in time. Each decision a promise to the past and future. You see, dear reader, this road is not some map or chronicle, it is a living thing. You can change it all. Remember? Your future has always been talking to you as you have been talking to your past.
Your voice is such an instrument of this place that it can be heard whenever you go. It sings of the twisting highway in the hills and it is the cry heard in the storm, always. It tells the stories in pain and relief, it sculpts the land to fit the road and yet it is the land, giving way for your road.
I can see you, this meandering road, and I can see the myriad you upon this road. I can hear you now calling out to your future on this road. I can hear others out there calling too. Be still for a moment and listen. Not for who is loudest, or who is in pain, just listen. Listen for the harmonies and overtones. Listen for the unison in that choir of you. Now listen to what they are singing about. It's you, isn't it? All your songs, clear as that road on a Sunday morning. If you can still breathe, please do so now.
Deeply you gather in the air. It is so full of music you can hardly believe it is healthy. But yet it nourishes you. How slow your heart beats along with it. It's so soothing to hear this song of breath and beat, so soothing to just listen to this song of you.
Now, dearest, take one last long look at this road from your vantage just at the roadside. Take one more breath here outside of time and space. Now step back onto that road and open your eyes.
Thank you for reading.
Pete.
