Paradigm Shifts

        A friend and I the other day were trying to think of the last time we were absolutely carefree--we almost couldn't remember such a time and were kind of amazed that it had existed. My threshold started at age twelve: I feel like I grew up a lot my thirteenth and fourteenth years, and left a lot of innocent little-girlishness behind me. It's incredible how learning of one event, one change in the life of someone close to you can change your life, your outlook on what is important and prioritized.
        Dreams which had once seemed so entrancing and all-encompassing were replaced by more realistic ones, beliefs in invincibility of those I loved were shattered, and my view of earthly things was altered: materiality equals temporary. We must protect our material bodies, finances, experiences, because we only get them once. How did a carefree child get all this in a matter of months? 
        Life can be seen as a steady upward slope, a series of roller-coaster up-and-downs, or any number of other strict picture diagrams, but someone once described the progression of life as a shaky, primarily horizontal line, that now and then comes unpredictably to experiences and paradigm shifts which cause it to suddenly jump up a notch. This is how I see life; although, sometimes jumping up a notch doesn't necessarily mean your life has gotten better. Usually, it just means it has gotten more complicated. When I look back and realize I can never really go back, I am sad in a way, but even more so amazed at what I have become without even trying. If I could go back, I don't think I would: is that bad?

The Furthest Mountain

            Something in me always wants to get to the furthest mountain-top, the peak beckoning with fresh slopes shining pink in the sun. And then, if you squint carefully, there is one even beyond that, retreating duskily into the mist; they are silent, hooded, but always there, always reminders of the places I have never gone. If I could reach the furthest one, could stand wind-whipped on the highest thrust of rock on the other side of what I know, would that be far enough? Would I have crossed the threshold, passed through the portal to mystery and adventure, or would there be another peak, just beyond my gaze? Even if the last and highest mountain were put behind me, there would always be something else, causing me to follow the staircase, winding, mounting, toward something which I can’t even explain, but which leads my feet as clearly as if they were tied with strings.

            Can you long for something you’ve never seen, can’t fully imagine? Can your questing be led to places never known to you, even when you’re not sure that they exist after all? I long for the last stair on the staircase, just beyond the highest peak… If I were a bird, I would probably fly too high, and get frozen by glacial winds; but then the mountains below would no longer beckon, only sit. Perhaps I would move on to the tossed palatial clouds, following the sun as it rolls on behind each floating mountain…