ADVENTURE DOWN A COUNTRY ROAD

I was all too familiar with the dark, soupy cocktail of my predawn commute with its precipitous, endless sea of headlights that seemed like lighthouses—beacons of hope illuminating a safe path for me during my morning commute.  I was hopelessly lost, however, on a ritualistic, tempestuous sea never questioning either the distance or the destination.  But one January morning, traffic congestion forced me to exit the well-lit freeway.  By happenstance, I ventured down a poorly-lit, meandering country road.  At each turn I marveled as my headlights reached out in the darkness making the snowflakes look like stars moving faster than the speed of light.  I slowed my car and embraced the subtle privacy of driving through the countryside with its longer, quieter stretches of road where I savored belonging to myself. 

At one turn I glanced east just as a subdued sun cast its gentle light upon the snowflakes swirling around my car.  I pulled over, stopped my car, and rolled down the window breathing in the crisp, cold air.  Winter’s tranquility and purity surrounded me—naked trees, crystal glints on snow, and an icy pond cloaked by frost-covered pines.  The wintry stillness enveloped me like a soft blanket, and I realized that things are reduced to essentials—the bones of the land, the bones of the trees, the bones of truth, and the stark elegance of the underlying structure of life. 

I closed my eyes; inhaled again; filled my lungs; and then exhaled.   At that precise moment I connected with something unseen—a facet of my being that had been buried in the day-to-day business of life.  Tears flooded my eyes and cascaded down my face; I gasped and whispered: 

“I’ve laboriously searched for you in the cold winter rains shivering from my chilly shallowness.  I’ve desperately sought you in spring blossoms and newness.  I’ve anxiously chased you on hot, sultry summer days—your presence singeing my body but hovering over me like a winged angel with a message from the Divine.  I’ve noticed you surreptitiously change me during the reflective, transitional days of fall with the promise of abundant colors and joy. Sometimes I’ve paused; taken a deep breath; and sensed the edges of your essence cutting through the silence.  Occasionally I’ve even felt your peaceful presence in the spaces between my body and mind.”

I stepped out of my car and drank in the solitude, soothed by its meditative quality.  Fragments of thought, splinters of words, and droplets of silence spun into a kaleidoscopic jumble, shifted, and fell into a marvelous new pattern:  I’d been so busy doing that I’d forgotten how to be a human being.  Stunned, I collapsed onto the frozen ground and wept uncontrollably.  I grabbed a tissue from my pocket and wiped away the tears that clung to my frozen cheeks.  I stood up and watched as my breath mingled with the frigid air. 

I stumbled to my car; and just before leaving the country road, I looked in my rearview

mirror.  The daylight had transformed the countryside into a soft Monet-like landscape painting.  I sighed, for the truth was somewhat easier to grasp in the gentle splendor of the wintry countryside.  Daylight washed over me as well; and I, too, felt twinges of transformation resonating through me.  And so it began—my hero’s journey.

  I’d awakened my dormant hero and was no longer content with grinding my way through frantic, predictable, mechanical, and meaningless days.  My illusionary world of commitments and doing had been inexplicably shattered.  I was tired of suffering and feeling meaningless.   I yearned to be myself; I wanted to wake up, see the unseen, hear the unheard, and touch the untouchable.  I sought answers that pushed me beyond the limits of the illusion.  I wanted to risk and investigate the way I lived until I determined the real purpose of why I was here.  Who I was?  What was I doing?  Where was I going? 

A pandemonium of confusion reigned.  Yet chaos was order.  So I continued on my journey with no particular destination in mind.  But nowhere was somewhere.  Then I entered the labyrinth—a strange world that required that I leave behind all thoughts of the world I knew before.     

And for months I traversed the labyrinth’s complicated, irregular passages and deep secret chambers.  Using my intuition I began to understand the labyrinth and had only to follow the thread of the hero path.  I ran my fingers through my soul and wrestled with my innermost fears, shames, regrets, and judgments bringing those hidden dimensions into the light.  I negotiated with my anger and converted it into strength.  I slew the egocentric monster that dwelt at the labyrinth’s center and sacrificed it for clarity, freedom, enlightenment, and creativity.  Then came a moment of catharsis in which I discovered that any labyrinth has only one path.  It is unicursal; and ironically the way in is the way out.

The same inner voice that guided me into the labyrinth eventually guided me out, and I emerged from the labyrinth a stronger yet more tender, compassionate, vulnerable, and authentic person.  I returned to the ordinary world healed, reborn, and at peace with myself possessing the most remarkably powerful elixir—a passion for artistic expression.

Words became my artistic tools, and I squeezed out words from the depths of my soul in much the same way a painter squeezes paint from tubes of color onto a palette.  And there was something beautiful about standing before a blank canvas—the nothingness of the beginning of a story that was so simple and breathtakingly pure.  Every story began in much the same way; my pen became my brush, and I dipped it into all the multi-colored paints creating splatter patterns, whirlpools of color, unique designs, and wonderful streaks and strains, and even the occasional wild accent.    I loved painting pictures with words and quickly fell into the joy of storytelling. 

And over the course of time, I became a writer.   Now writing is who I am and what I do, and I love being a writer.