trailblazing
When the path ignites a soul,
there’s no remaining in place.
The foot touches ground,
but not for long.
— Hakim Sanai
Beginning in the middle circles the heart of the story, it’s true. But that is just the shape of the spiral, the yellow brick road unwinding at my feet here in the middle of my life. I leave this country for Spain in two days’ time, swinging from plane to plane like swinging across the monkey bars as a child, trusting the rhythm of letting go and reaching out, grabbing hold with one hand as momentum carries me beyond myself.
I think it’s easier to pinpoint the center of the spiral once it has gone ’round the bend a few times. Quite possibly literally. I think of my life as a series of tangents that were wrenched and contorted into orbit around my divided heart, that yin-yang binary star of my dreams and demons. When binary stars are the same size, they can destroy each other, creating a black hole, an endless void. But if one is larger, it can absorb and use the energy of the other. So for all these years, I have been trying to absorb the lessons of my pain by changing its manifestations in my daily life – studying, counseling, practicing taking tea with my demons like Milarepa, transforming them from wounds into scars, into street smart life lessons, dedication, duty.
But I neglected to grow my dreams. Without making my dreams larger, they will never have more weight in my life than my sufferings. They will always orbit each other in my heart until I am destroyed by them both. Neglected dreams do not wither on the vine – they rot, and turn poisonous.
There are two paths of which one may choose in the walk of life;
one we are born with, and the one we consciously blaze.
— T.F. Hodge
When I am asked what I value most, I have long answered, “Freedom.” But what is freedom if not the opportunity to follow your dreams? So finally, at long last, I have created my opportunity. By prioritizing it. After three years of transition, I have left the job, given up the apartment, and am saying my goodbyes. I am blazing my own trail.
I don’t know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination.
— Jodi Picoult
I don’t know either. I don’t know how to prepare for a journey I’ve never taken. But I believe everything up to now somehow has been the preparation I needed, and it doesn’t really matter what I pack, or if I’m fluent in the language, or loose with my itinerary. I’m mulling all of this. Hoping that my history contains a hidden map to my future. Hoping it’s a star chart, where what once burned deeply will now burn brightly, lighting my way. Because I’m going.
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson