I had nothing to wash my blood pressure pill down with so I chewed it up and simply swallowed the pieces as best I could.
I don't even really remember the pack up, but I must have gathered everything strewn around the area where I'd settled the night before. I wasn't missing anything.
I remembered what the nice guy at the service station had told me about the Dunkin Donuts up the road. I was supposed to get back on to Danielson Pike and head west until I could take my first right and walk up a hill. Naturally, I screwed the whole thing up, by coming to a fork that had no streets signs and choosing heads when I should have chosen tails.
But this would be a fortuitous choice indeed.
I made it to a road, still dark in the pre-sunrise, called, Rockland Road. This was a long and barren place, winding through marshes and beside sleepy houses where no lights were yet visible in the bedrooms of their occupants. After some time an orange glow began to fill the sky to my left. That good old reliable sun was coming up.
By then, the sounds of large diesel engines were filling the air. School buses. As I walked on and on, I'd hear them come up behind me, slow down for the pathetic traveler in the road, and then accelerate loudly as they passed me.
Whenever one would come from up ahead I could imagine the bus driver saying, "You see, kids! Do you see him? That is what will happen to you if you don't go to school and get an education!"
Oh, how I wish I could have defended myself. Cruel bus drivers, presuming...assuming. But it wasn't their fault. Everyone has preconceived, stereotypical views about other people, based only on the way they look, or the way they live. We are not what we appear to be. None of us are, unless we have already surrendered to being slammed into where we think society expects us to "belong."
I stopped at the swamp's edge after one of these buses rumbled by and took this picture of the impending sunrise. I don't know why, but the camera didn't do it much justice...
Sunrise over the wetlands of Rockland Road, Scituate, Rhode Island.
The frogs were going bananas in the early light. I guess they thought it was the same romantic color as evening--which I guess it is...with maybe a hint more bad breath involved.
I turned and ventured on, using my compass to comfort me. West. That was the only thing I needed to see. After several miles I glimpsed a clearing up ahead, with a complex number of roads crossing each other...
"Crazy Corners" Scituate, Rhode Island.
Rockland Road is the middle road coming in from the top left in the image above. And, just before it reaches that weird arrow-head intersection is the place of the Square Stone Table. Here's a better view...
The arrow marks the entrance and the circle surrounds the Stone Table.
The entrance that I came in from looks like this...
The Stone Table is seen in the very back of the center of the photo.
Google Street View.
This spot was my Stonehenge. Some great soul had erected these things that I might someday find them. Or, so I imagined. I walked in...
All of my stuff was jumbled up in the pack, hanging off by bungee cords, some wet, some dry, some to be thrown away. When I saw this one and only place to rest and reorganize, a very, VERY strange feeling came over me. I'm going to tell you about it, but there is no requirement for belief on your part, as there should be no requirement for proof on my part. Okay?
* * * * * * *
I saw, as it were, faces across the trees in the background. It was like an audience of happy and expectant children. The orange of the sky had turned brilliant yellow, and streamed down much as you see in the Google image above.
No traffic passed by as I entered this small sanctuary; this sacred place. There were no sounds made by human beings, only birds and the small creatures of the morning; rising, breathing, living, as they always do, always have, and always will...
I walked in and saw the heavy granite table. It was carefully placed on four large stones. It was evenly weighed out; stable as a concrete piling and close to perfectly level, with it's rough bumps and surface distortions adding a rough artistic beauty.
Many other stones were placed around the area, large and small. In the center was a stone fireplace. The ground was spotless, except for some wind-blown trash, which I (not seeing a trash can) picked up and put where others had courteously done the same--in the fire pit.
I knew this was my refuge. And the unseen companion who had not left my side, even since Boston's rainy vigil, seemed to smile at me from my left side. I could not seen him directly, but I felt the happiness he shone upon me in this place...from his invisible face.
Warm waves flowed up and down my spine. I removed the pack and respectfully laid it to the side of the table. All I wanted to do for a while is sit at one of its grand stools and simply breath.
Mist gently rose and dissipated, in slow meandering wisps. The roads disappeared. And I was in another kind of reality; deep within some medieval forest, before the advent of time itself.
I had been so anxious; so bent down with stress and uncertainty. I was an old man, being made new. My thirst was forgotten for the time being. I had this place to rest and completely take all of my stuff apart, separate it, dry it, and repack it. I could take as long as I wanted. My inner voice said, This is your day. You will be filled. You will be recharged. Remember it when you feel weak. I clearly heard this voice from the Light--from the Spark...
I'm not above being skeptical myself about such potentially thirst-driven and weary delusions. But hey! It was good enough for me. I gladly accepted this message with an open heart and would soon explore it with an opened mind. Two roaches of the non-living kind were tucked into a crevasse on the table top. I consumed them as one should in such circumstances.
And, indeed, my mind was opened...
I saw white sand and a salt water beach. A warm breeze blew through my hair and down my back, though my shirt. It had been so long...
In this beach vision the sun rose behind me. I was facing west...the end of the longest journey in my life. I had no idea what it meant, but could surmise that maybe it was California.
I pictured myself walking on a road, smooth and black. But instead of moving forward, each step was pulling the entire earth under and behind me like a planet-sized treadmill, just as fast as I would walk. In this way, did the earth rotate below my feet, and according to my stride. I knew I was a disheveled, frumpy and weather-worn traveler. I was the least of all men. But the ground below me was subject to my gate. How could this be? It didn't matter to me at the time. And, why still doesn't matter to me. I don't care about revelations and prophecies. I only care about the immediate moment and why it might be the most important thing in the Universe.
After some time the vision and feeling faded. My personal transformation had run its course. I was no longer what I had been. I am no longer what I was. With my devotion to the road, all of my experience has found liberation from the fetters of preconception and human bias. With my single-minded desire to simply act, back at North Station in Boston, I had broken out of the bonds of a lifetime of disappointment. For this one moment I had entirely become immune to disappointment. I knew that I would occasionally fall back, falter and doubt. But, this was the experience I would be able to revisit and recharge myself with, just as the voice had promised.
For a few minutes I simply sat and wept tears of joy.
* * * * * * *
When I was reasonably back in touch with the everyday world, I felt a huge smile on my face and threw myself into unpacking and re-organizing my stuff. Here are some of the pictures of that...
As I reworked things, cleaned them, dried them out and generally enjoyed the morning, I thought to myself, This day would be absolutely perfect if I only had something to drink; something to wash away this thirst...
Just then, a white truck that said "Providence Water" drove in. It was Raymond DiCarlo, whom I will profile in the next post.
That meeting ended with him leaving and then unexpectedly coming back with a liter Mt. Dew for me. So it did indeed end up being a perfect day. And, though perfection may be a goal in itself, it is not a limit. It can still be added to. When I met the Knights of the Stone Table, additional happiness was found. They will also be profiled after Raymond.
I said some time ago at Facebook that I was going to try wear my soul on the outside. We are usually told that the body houses the soul. But, such need not be the case. The soul (in my opinion, now) should house the body instead. At the very least I will seek to have it house mine.
So I relate the story above with the naked innocence and trusting, wide-eyed expectation of a child who has been reborn...as such. That is what is required for the soul to begin its migration from the inside to the outside.
The fact that hundreds of people may read this (some of them with malice in mind) will be a real test to my battered-destroyed-and-rebuilt ego (and I say "ego" in the clinical, Freudian sense; not the meme-driven, stereotypical sense of selfishness that the word usually connotes).
I ask that you only consider that this experience was real to ME. And, in the weeks and months to come, I hope you can remember what drives me by recalling this unusual and transformative event in this journey. There need be no actual, provable fact in order for there to be Real truth. And, this is all True, in that exact sense.
This was the day that I knew I would finish my journey - eventually - and might actually pull a wave of social optimism behind me that I have never seen before.
For, those who can believe without seeing and love without restriction, may also be the ones who finally get the chance to observe what they have only yet believed, and feel their own LOVE unfold and wash over this very land...maybe someday, even across the whole world.
YES! Thanks, Ede!
ReplyDelete