Manifest Destiny: America from the Bottom Up - Drifting

[The following is a short supplemental post. It is important in that it grabs a feeling out of the aether that I have grown to appreciate. My only hope is that you may also find something in it for yourself.]

I had mentioned some posts back about a certain phenomenon that occurs during the most physically challenging moments of my walks and hikes: Drifting.

I take the term from the film Lawrence of Arabia. Specifically, I am referring to the scene at 01:04:42,087, when upon crossing the Nefud desert, Sharif Ali (played by Omar Sharif) wacks Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole) with his stick, because he sees that Lawrence is spaced out and has a faraway look in his eyes. Here's the exchange...

Ali: [Wack!] 

Lawrence: I was thinking. 

Ali: You were drifting. 

Lawrence: Yes. It will not happen again. 

Ali: Be warned. You were drifting. 

Lawrence: It will not happen again.

Because it will be referenced in the next regular post, I'd like to make this supplemental post to go into deeper detail about what is happening during these "episodes." Granted I don't know exactly what is happening, but I have been examining them while they occur--if I can focus long enough.

When mile after mile has passed under foot and the goal is always moved further down the field, the mind wanders. Hills come and, like a beautiful woman, they play hard to get. They tease while you climb up them, thinking the summit is just around the bend, and then they head upwards again.

After these miles have stretched me to nearly the breaking point, my body begins to tell my mind that it is OK to go away for a short period of time. At such times, I use the walking stick, not as a crutch but as an indicator of whether I am about to collapse. There is the click...click...click...click...scrape! Oops. Click...click...click...scrape. Too many scrapes and it is time to rest whether there is a place or not to do so.

As when I was having my heart attack in 2006, little nursery rhymes start to enter my mind. They are just simple songs, whispers from a time before I had to care about this world.

"Down by the station early in the morning..." click...click...click...

My eyes blur and I simply look at certain blades of grass, or pebbles that appear to be like man made objects, then morph back to nature's sculptures.

I can tell that I'm losing moisture quickly by how frequently the sweat fills my Maine cap, then works its way to the visor, dripping off the front of it. Drip...drip..drip..click..click...

If this goes on long enough I begin to completely recede into myself. I see days gone by; regrets; triumphs; faces of those I love, or loved...

Times out on Domillo's Floating Restaurant in Portland, Maine often come to me. Sunday morning brunches with friends, now distant, maybe even gone forever.

I see myself as a child, riding in front of my father who's arms are around me as we skirt through the frozen snowmobile paths around the Bayview Street peninsula, the light from the machine pouring out over the trail; the only illumination for miles around, with the stars in full color poking through the purple night like needles.

I see myself and my childhood friends gathering change to bring down to Frosty's, a local penny candy store and gas station at the head of Bayview Street. Fifty cents could buy me an afternoon's worth of candy.

My first kiss... My first drive alone in a car... The grandeur of teenage love... A night at Cousin's Island Beach with my best friend, watching the remnants of a hurricane pass, with it's cloudy arms stretched out like the trails of a galaxy...

Click...scrape...

I'm not sure if the drifting is good or bad. It just IS.

I am a flawed soul. I am not the kind of person you might choose to deliver a message to the world. I think - as I drift - why would anyone care?

At some point there is a sense that I must either stop and rest (which means it will be ten times harder to start again), or I should bite my lip and shake my head, wipe the sweat and forge forward like a soldier on a forced march; like a prisoner who will be shot if he stumbles.

So far I have been lucid enough to choose the latter and come back to reality.

But nothing precludes any other alternative.

There is a moment when all of us must decide upon such things. It doesn't have to be while wallking. Our destinies are indeed in our own hands. The human will can bring you as far as the human body will allow, then... Then... it is up to greater forces than ourselves to continue.

I fight for my destiny, like I would fight to save a friend from drowning. I rest in peace, like I would rest if I knew the end was inevitable. I LIVE (now) as though these two things were married to each other, and attached to me like an extra limb.

It is THIS moment that counts. Let other things try to deceive you into believing that the future is the goal, or that the past is a golden age. THIS is the TIME. THIS is the PLACE. Where you are at this particular moment in time IS ALL that exists.

If I had never been drifting, I would have never known this Truth, experientially. It is just another in the unfathomable number of experiences I have come to gather like precious gems strewn along the dirty roadsides of America. Beauty IS. Truth FLOWS. Goodness ACTS.