Arrival 2

I’m desperate enough to be part of this land to put myself into financial distress, which has already been done. The lot that is for sale beside ours is a rolling clusterfuck of steep hilly terrain, high dead grasses after the drought and bushy sage that is crisp along the tips of the leaves. I walked up the length of our lot toward the skeletal foundation of our house and felt there’s not enough space to support such a monstrosity of human construction, and looked to my left, to the southwest toward an open, wild space without blight. And then I knew.

Our place means very little. We – you and I – can occupy anything, anywhere, but without the right approach our efforts are useless. I can walk an endless bit of wild space and not be part of it. I can sleep in the dirt, pick burrs from my hair, the bother of sword grass between my toes, sand, rock, the withering rays of the dying sun. And I am still outside of that essence from which we are born, a distant impression on the fabric of wilderness and nature.

Consciousness doesn’t elevate, it separates, and we’re at a loss because of it. We are the shadows of something that belongs here, but just shadows.