mmmcclix

Getting Down to the Truth

I have been famished. I’ve been
utterly and despondently ashamed.
I used to ask for my eggs over hard,
but I’ve eaten them runny, and they
were just fine. While I’m not entirely
certain what I am saying to you here,
I can say for certain, with apologies
as it were, that it’s not about hunger.
Allow me if you will to take you
on an adventure.  For years, I’ve
had this thing: I’d take my friends,

by ones and twos, etc., on a country

tour, a beautiful tour that lasted no 

more than a couple of hours.  And 

while there were different guides on

separate days, it was the same tour 

each time, and every time I’d go along, 

a friend, and an audience member, just 

like my pals.  While I’d been on the tour 

countless times before, there’d be nuanced 

differences.  We’d hear the same stories, traverse

the same route and, with slight adjustments for 

the season or for the ongoing changes that occur 

in nature.  And each time I would be just as curious 

and just as interested as I was at every tour previous. 

Except I was as equally interested in observing my friends 

along the way, seeing how each took to it, while also listening 

to the guide, curious about the sights and the stories that went 

along with what we saw, at various points snapping photos, making 

little mementos of the occasion.  What am I saying, telling you this, 

besides the surface of a diminutive anecdote, I wonder.  Am I simply 

more interested, in general, in being a participant than a guide; am I

more of a climber than a sherpa, more student, less professor?  Or
perhaps this aspect of me that I have just relayed to you
reiterates my geminian nature, revealing how I am so
often driven to be all and neither at once.  I believe

these things are each true about me.  In fact, I’ll say
with confidence that they are.  And I’d happily, were 

you even the least bit willing and interested, take the 

time to further elaborate upon these truths about me, 

would of course be curious to hear what you’d have to 

say about these propensities and listen to where you 

generally reside on such a spectrum; it’d be awesome 

to brainstorm with you to come up with a list of the pros 

and the cons of each of our respective ways of being

in life, and to collaboratively come up with ways
in which each of us could take this information
and use it to better our lives going forward.  I
can envision a discussion such as this going well
into the night as we branch out on various related
tangents, relishing every minute of our time together 

and, upon parting ways for the night or the day, 

feeling filled with life and awe and questions 

and camaraderie.  I should probably tell 

you, though, that this isn’t really about 

any of that.  I believe that I’m attempting 

to illustrate here for you–that I

brought this up because–with 

all that I am, which is the 

sum of all of whatever it is 

with which I’m made up, I 

miss those tourists, and I 

miss those sage guides; 

I mourn the presence of 

each and every one of them.

But am so very grateful that I

not only had the serendipity to
have crossed paths with each and
all, but that I had the pleasure of going
along on every small journey, every
moment of which was a gift that stays
with me, buoying me up every single day:
to have been along for the ride with you.
That has been pretty much everything. 

And so I give thanks, in my very small 

way, in the best way I know how, for now.