Escape

I walked back to the bush today. I love it here. The sound of loneliness is so much kinder than we give credit for. There’s no other place where I can feel so present, which is to say lost in the moment.

It’s here where I can reconnect with my inner child. The sound of the water rushing over the rocks, and the breeze rustling the bushes remind me of what it means to be alive.

I fell in love here, once. It was short lived, but, that never really mattered. It felt real. To feel anything is such a beautiful thing.

As I sit on this rock, where beneath me, the water rushes, I can see the traces of the other visitors. There are bits of garbage left behind, and what looks like the fairly recent remains of a fire, where the school papers that once were left here likely returned to the ether. I have never met these visitors, or if I have it wasn’t here, and so I never knew it. But I don’t mind. I prefer the solitude. Instead, we communicate through our footprints we leave behind.

Connecting with my inner child is not an easy task. It is not enough to simply be alone, as I am in my bedroom. I need also the comfort of the tree’s, the open air, and the smell of the natural world. With these settings, I can take off the mask which I wear in society, or even with friends, nay, even with family. It does not occur to me as a conscious decision to wear the mask, but rather a necessary side effect of socialization. The mask is not bad, but nonetheless, it is refreshing to escape it at times.

Reconnecting with my inner child, is to reconnect with the person who decided to play this game of life. One who knew it worth playing. One who knew that it was all playful. As we grow older, and try to control our external world more and more, we often forget to have fun with the whole process. At least, I know I have.

Perhaps more than anything, I love this spot so, because getting lost here helps me understand, even if only a little bit, what it means to be alive. Of course I can’t tell you, because consciously I do not know. Life cannot be explained, because life isn’t to be put into words, it’s to be lived.