Story

What would you like this evening; the wind is ripping around the corners, pulling at the latched windowpanes, and there is time for a tale, but which?  A story, a fable, a history, a lament to pull your heart into secret cupboards, or a persuasive on the determination of kindness that will lay a pillow down for your toiling head and heart?  There is science, observation, and the foundations they build from the cut stones of research; research anything and you will have an obelisk of knowledge that stands in your backyard, whose shadow reaches over faraway sacred rivers and open tundras.

But now, what would you like to hear, to distract you from the storm of life?  I can open your furthest dreams, bring back a memory, give you time; I can give you time.  Now don't worry, it isn't invasive and really, it's your own self that does the work; I turn keys and illuminate hallways, but you are the one who knows where you are going.  Do you remember.  Did you ever.  What was it like. Stirring visuals return, yearnings tug at an old screen door banging in hot summer dust.  Where were you, at what age?  Was it grand?  Was it too long? Was it a ribboned box that produced a glass paperweight?  Ticket stubs, pressed handkerchiefs, letters, a toy; all have an assigned time in your life, telling markers measured out by clepsydras and wheels.

I knew of a person torn pretty much in two by the illusion of dogged honor, which planted itself directly opposite the elusive freedom of following a happy desire.  Contrary to the rings of conversation, the path of integrity was much easier to stick with day after day, for there was comfort in performing the usual tasks, a phantom of safeness.  People will say that doing what's right is the harder nobility, but therein is a disagreement; integrity, while admirable, may kill you. Stand at guard, stay the course; you will remain in place, forever petrified.  Are you harming anyone or dunning your responsibility towards the ill?  No?  Then run like the wind, but remember, you have just made the harder choice.

To capture your heart's deepest wish takes a hell of a lot of work; Aladdin's lamp is non-existent, not even a dollar coupon will fall from the sky.  It takes years of dedication to an empty coffer, with the happy goal seemingly further away while you develop and grow, take chances, get a job, and eat cheap.  But you are gaining ground, out from under whatever thumb you've created in your ego that held you down like a millstone.  Religion, family expectations, assigned roles, or the social climate of where you live will sit their fat arses at the top of your spine and whine that you're wrong.  Most of you who are sane or better, you aren't wrong at all.  Keep going.  Be the outlier.

Time is removed as months and years blur into monotony from study, getting up at odd hours, finding a pair of cables to jumpstart your car; it can be excruciating, but inside, you will feel the happiness of finding who you are and what you love. There will be good people along the way that you can share your findings with; this is not a selfish endeavor, but one of self-discovery, of joy, and that means there are many like-minded folks out there traveling on the same journey.

Is success one hundred percent guaranteed?  Nope.  Nothing is, not even gravity, which varies in strength around the planet.  Yes, it's a chance, a risk.  But you're alive, and curious as a ferret; go find what's out there, and in spite of not reaching a desired goal, what happens along the way is well worth your time and effort.  

So, how does your story end?  Full of gratitude and appreciation for each second brought in harmony with your beliefs, when the actions you undertook culminated not so much in an explosive, glorious, singular conclusion, but as a series of auspicious blossomings that build a lovely enough cluster leading to other pathways.  Other chapters, other pages; for you see, there is no conclusion. Take hope, a drink of water, and charge the nib with India black; the paper curls past the table's edge and puddles on the floor in luxurious serpentine cockles. Scribe down what you are in ink, history will not remember electricity or words assigned to echoes in the air.  Be.

After a warm day, the rains have come to play percussions on the windows, the wind determinedly eroding words written in stone.  Tomorrow is a busy day, for I am helping bake kosher cookies in a synagogue's kitchen, destined for my new daughter-in-law's shower.  But look, already; it is the tomorrow, three minutes past midnight.  Time then, to waft into bed, to remember sitting earlier this day by a lake with a friend, speaking of paragraphs and beginnings.

Sleep well; we tell stories to share our lives, to bring people together through commonality, to teach what we have learned, to encourage and support one another; to amuse, to draw away from the work of living and give a moment of respite.  Look in your own cupboards, behind doors locked away in memory for you are there; the words of remembrance are waiting.  A story.  Tell me a story.

Once there was...