Without honesty, life becomes a pantomime. And yet it’s hard to know what’s true.

I’ve found that truth unfolds in concentric rings; like ripples in a still pool of water, or the growth of a tree.

And each ring references, yet also takes space from, the previous.

And so only in cycles of time, and in seasons, is a kind of long term knowing revealed.

It’s easy to forget that there is a kind of glacial energy to the every day, like leaves unnoticed piling in drifts in the gutters in autumn. Each day another leaf, and soon enough, there’s a drift of half noticed moments, forgotten days, and the occasional memory that stays forever. And this is life?

Through the threads of being and days, acting and passivity, choices and impositions, life passes.

There’s a phrase in the northern part of Italy, up against the alps: “Tiempo alla passa. Passa il bin.” Which is dialect for: Time passes. Pass it well.

And I came across a phrase, translated from Lao Tze by Lori Dechars, that says:

How do I know the way of things at the beginning?

I feel like I’ve come to a thought about life and love in general recently that feels clear: which is that I should let what loves me do so, and I should love only what I love. And endlessly let go of those things that aren’t this.

In that way, I stop resisting the flow of life, and live out a trajectory that is true. And maybe I’ll gain some energy from no longer resisting the inevitable course that my journey wants to make.

In all this, in writing and in conversation, I try to find the words that are true. And yet its always hard to find the right words. And in that same way, its hard to know when to follow what is easy, or pursue what is hard.

It’s important to remember the rules of life. But I lost my rule book long ago. I do my best to make up whatever makes sense to do, whatever’s true, vital, alive, and real. And to remember that resisting is a form of safety. That it’s good to be safe sometimes, but a life that’s always safe... is maybe one that produces no living.

Thanks for listening ~

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TRANSCRIPT

A long time ago, I used to have some friends who liked to go around the country by riding freight trains

They'd hitch out of Omaha or Lincoln or usually Kansas City and end up in Pennsylvania or Montana, California, Arizona

I never caught a ride with any of them

I didn't really ever have the chance

But I liked to sit with them on the rails and the bridges and watch the trains go by

And they'd tell me about the different kinds of cars and which ones were good rides, where they were going, what you had to look out for

Maybe that's why when I went for a walk recently and found an old abandoned railroad trestle in the western part of Victoria's downtown in Canada, where I live now. I climbed over a fence and went and sat on it for a while

And I've been going back to it, sitting there and watching cars go by, people, a couple of stories up above the ground

I don't really have anything else to say but that, just a funny memory, I guess

Maybe a reflection about living in an urban place because I've lived out in the countryside for so long now

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At the checkout counter, the southeast Asian guy whose country affiliation I can’t quite figure out smiles at me and asks how my day is going. We smile back and forth, subtly catching each others eye, like we are in on the same joke that neither of us know. His haircut is high and tight, he’s got a golden wedding band, he’s always here at apna, the Indian cafeteria and grocery store I come to for cheap chai, dosas, and studying. ....Full text & photos: https://walkaround.run