I have walked a long path in life, and I am still prodding along. The one thing that has stuck with me throughout my journeys is to remember to look up at the tops of the trees-not the sky or how it bleeds and how the top of the world intermingles in with the leathery leaves fluttering slightly as a breeze tickles through. I don't look at the eldritch fingers trying to scrape the clouds as if they could catch the wind any better than I. Instead I look at the tops of trees to remind myself that there, in front of me is a set of roots that anchors the world above to the world below. I often wonder why I don't just fall up, and if I did, would my own fingers reach for those treetops, or would I go on to keep looking at them, albeit from another perspective? The treetops remind me of this, the horizons we all yearn after, and they also taught me a lesson of particular importance: When traveling a path in life, one should not just look at the footsteps they make, they should look for the things that connect everything to everything else, just like the rain is how the earth and the sky hug each other. Getting caught in the rain means something else now, doesn't it?
I teach Language Arts, and have found that teaching is a passion that leaves me happily exhausted at the end of the year, but each day I come home I find that I am not tired from what one would call work, instead I am instilled with the knowledge that I love what I do and I try to pass that onto my youngest son, Lucas. I have, at the moment, five children altogether. Alex, Lilith, Jade, Lucas and Ameaus. My oldest, Alex is living on his own, trying to find his own path in life. Lucas is most likely trying to take apart my washing machine and trying to build a doomsday device at four years old, and Ameaus is probably laughing at him as an infant only can. My eldest daughter is now 14, and Jade is only a couple of years younger. My two daughters are estranged from me due to the anger and mistrust a betrayal can bring to a woman's heart, and I bear her no grudge against that. Ruining my life is one thing, yet brutally abusing my oldest son's life is completely another, hence the betrayal that came with my departure was not calculated, but righteous in it's own way, and I lament that time as my greatest failure as a man, but as I always did and will do, I moved on.
Now, whilst I teach, I am happily remarried to a woman who is both as brilliant as she is supportive. Her beauty, while outwardly is threateningly fantastic (she's hot), her true beauty comes from what burns within her heart.
She is a teacher as well, but is planning on expanding her knowledge by attaining a degree in Nursing, hopefully working up to being a Nurse Practitioner. She wants to return to Africa, Tanzania to be more precise, to educate and work with the people there to create a community that can thrive despite the ever encroaching demands that the big cities bring and the vision of 'civilization' that they think is better. We as a family, in time, will hopefully educate and work alongside many different people in many different places.
This path of mine yearns for a destination, I'm tired...but my life keeps me moving, so like a nomad, each step in life in merely a resting spot, a place for me to throw my stone into the pond of life. I just hope the ripples I make from now on are more positive than the ones I made in the past.
Oh, look at that, time to move on.