It was quite comfortable weather today and seeing as it was my last day off before school starts on Monday and I triple my work load for a hopefully rewarding semester that will, in return, put me in an uneasy state of a debt racking above my head as far as the eye can see, I decided I needed some time to look at the real world. I drove east for an hour and stopped in what appeared to be an empty space where I could let go of my thoughts and let them twist above me like steam rising from a boiling pot.
It felt good, laying there in the grass with an ageless sky above me. My only wish is that the grass would be lush like the fields up north, how it feels so good that you start ripping it out of the ground. Or if it's long, like the horse pastures I would keep my horse in because of his tireless metabolism, you pick one long strand just to gnaw on, as if you could nurse the lush youth out of it. I loved those days; how I'd lay next to an animal that could easily crush me but know that he wouldn't. That bond was sacred; my horse would never hurt me and I would never hurt him. I'd listen to him next to me, vigorously chomping at the grass like it was holding him to the Earth and he needed desperately to find one substantial cluster to grab on to. Sometimes out of curiosity he'd wander over to me, flicking his lip up and down over my face and sniffing, proceeding further when he would get a reaction of laughter out of me because his breath would travel into my ears and tickle a nerve somewhere. When he felt comfortable, he'd lay his head down far enough for me to grab on to his neck and he'd pull me up with a massive strength into an awkward embrace with my arms around his neck and his head down my back.
Sometimes I'd take off my shoes and get on his back, wrapping my feet around his belly, feeling him breath, feeling his great muscles in their movements. And I'd grab his mane, making a glob of his coarse hair the only thing left to cling to before the ground if my legs couldn't hold. I remember how it felt up there, a sort of quiet, trusting thrill. I knew that if he spooked, there would be no way for me to stop him. But something about being one with this huge creature as he grazed peacefully gave me comfort. I loved his company. I never needed the horse shows with their ridiculous decadence and politics that swarmed above the arenas. I only needed the air in that lush grass and the sound of him and the trust between us. We were a part of a bigger world, one greater than the horse shows, the trailers, the cars, the cell phones, all the devices that we added to a simple relationship between two species. It was always a good place to think.
The nostalgia made me think of a Japanese phrase that I have read in a few books, one being the actual title of the book, "an artist of the floating world." How pretty the words were together, maybe even more so in their original tongue. It is as if this "artist" is above our world, not because he or she is any better or any worse, but because it is a place of no organization and a dreamlike picture from which he or she can look down upon the real world occasionally and paint what is seen. I thought about how if you wanted to be a part of that world, you'd give up the weight of this one and glide through the clouds, feeling the water brush against your cheeks. I thought about how it might be filled with moments like that one in the pasture with my horse, feeling like ancient spirits tied together. I thought about how the air would be thin and crisp. I thought about how peace isn't always happiness but still allows room for serenity to fill in.
As the sky began to change I felt the cool atmosphere fall down upon me. I had lost track of time in the midst of my dreaming. I was gliding to the floating world. I had reached the destination where I felt a part of the changes, the growing, the breeze, the ants invisible underneath me and the sun falling on me, feeding us all the life we crave. Perhaps for that moment I was an artist of the floating world. Perhaps, I have never been. Perhaps it is something that is to be earned over tiresome, loathsome years of isolating anguish attempting to turn these heavy thoughts into beautiful words. Attempting to breath. However you get there, to this floating world in its weightlessness, effortless beauty, and childish innocence, I need to find the way.
I need to get home.
No comments:
Post a Comment