During my lunchtime walks, I find myself glancing towards the mountains. How could I not? They are simply right there—a range rising high above the land, brushing the sky, stealing my breath. They are gorgeous. Many are capped in snow, some merely sprinkled with it, others doused. They all rise higher than my brain can conceptualize, they are bigger than I can understand. Looking at them makes me feel small; they make me remember I am small, that the world is much, much bigger than me and it is much, much older, too.
With eyes on the very horizon, my thoughts widen. It is right, I think, to look at the mountains and think beyond immediacy. I cannot help but stray from the thoughts of the work task I left behind or thoughts of what to make for dinner into thoughts a little less tangible.
Today’s thought: I am waiting for something.
Not for the workday to be over or for the weekend to come, but for something bigger.
I am waiting for something to happen.
The thought loops around my head and it rests in my chest, too.
I am waiting; it is a feeling. There is a sense of pause in me, a sense that I await a reason. I am looking for something that spurs me onward towards…something.
I walk down the street and I watch squirrels traipse from branch to branch. I turn a corner and trudge up the hill. The cars zoom down with a recklessness that frightens me and leaves my ears ringing for a few seconds. I pass the house with chickens in a coop in the yard and the one with Halloween decorations still up on their fence.
What are you looking for? I keep asking myself.
My eyes scan—they devour the details around me, but they always end up pulled back to the mountains. The horizon keeps finding my eye. My walks on overcast days where far-off mist conceals the mountains are never so thrilling, never so serene, never so inquisitive. The mountains keep me asking. The mountains keep me wondering.
There is a sense in me that I am waiting for something to happen before my life can start. When that thing happens—yes, yes, now my life will begin; I will feel right and I will know.
Know what?
I am not sure.
I can think of things I want to do in my life, sure. There are a few places in the world I want to see and I hope there are many people left for me to meet. But thinking of my future does not bring to mind a checklist I must accomplish. When I think of my future, more than anything I imagine feelings. I think of feeling content, feeling known, feeling safe, feeling connected. I imagine a world in which I know beyond all doubt I am loved. Once I have those things, then my life will be going. I need only wait until I have it and then all will be right. Then I can be.
The mountains, wise and tall, are disappointed in me, I think, because the thing about this future…I think of it springing into existence. I imagine a jump cut from right now to the moment in which I know I am content and safe and known and connected and loved. I picture no in-between. I never have. I know my now and I know what I want my then to feel like, but the middle has never had a shape. It doesn’t exist, really.
Still, I walk. Still, my eyes pull to the mountains. Still, I wonder. The thought loops and makes a nest in my chest.
What am I looking for? What am I waiting for?
A feeling, I think.
Belonging, I think.
My life will begin once I belong.
The mountains did not spring into existence. The snow on their peaks did not randomly appear one day. It was a process for the mountains to rise from the Earth. It was a process for the snow to fall from the heavens.
I am waiting for the thing that will spur the jump cut to belonging.
Today, the sun shines bright and it warms my back. The trees sway in the gentlest of breezes and the birds hop across their branches.
I could never have predicted the events that led me to this city, to this job, to this home. Never ever could I have predicted what the year would reveal to me about myself, either.
Had my life not been broken by all-consuming grief, I would not have moved back home.
Had I not moved back home, I would not have pushed myself in the directions I did.
Had I not gone in the directions I did, I would not have met the people who challenged me. Had I not met the people who challenged me, I would not have pushed myself in the new ways I did. If I had not pushed myself, I would not be at this job, living in this home, walking on this street. I would not be happy in the way I am these days. I would not know what it means to feel.
The mountains look blue from far away. If I were to stand at the foot of the mountain, I would see the rocks in shades of gray and black and I would see the brown of the soil and the branches and I would see the green of the trees and the moss and the foliage; but if I were to paint the view from my walk, I would distill the mountains onto the canvas with hues of blue. It feels like a gift that they might be one color from a far and many, many more from up close.
The snowy caps are stark against the blue.
I cannot say the snow is any more the mountains’ purpose than is the mountains’ mere presence. Is the snow the culmination of the mountain or is it merely a crown of its magnitude?
The future is little more than a series of moments. My last year proved it—one decision led me to another which led me to another and so on. At some point, each of those decisions was my future, just as it was my present, then my past.
I am looking for something to happen, waiting for that trigger so I can jump cut my way to a future of connection and security and belonging and more; that something is the future, however, just as much as is the want of belonging.
If they are both the future, if every moment beyond my now is the future, then how can I say there is one moment that will set everything in motion? The future is a thousand tiny moments built on one another. They comprise the interim to each future, and then they become touchstones on my path. I have to live that interim. I have to build it.
When I think of every book I have ever read, every story I have ever heard, I remember that they all say you cannot wait for your life to find you, you must go out and find it.
Yes. Of course, yes.
But I don’t really know how to do that. I am getting glimpses; I am learning, inkling by inkling, how to begin to figure it out. But figuring it out is not a one-and-done sort of thing.
I don’t like that. I am impatient, you see. Impatient and idealistic. I do not want to wait for this future and I do not want to settle for less than what I seek.
A jump cut to what I want is what I want. Find the thing that spurs, then leap to the moment when all is well and I belong. Once I belong, then I can explore my life. That is what I want.
Right?
The mountains did not sprout forth in a moment. Had they erupted from the Earth in an instant, grand and impossibly tall, they would not have the serenity they hold now. They would not know where they were or who they were. Their nature would be sudden and they would stand for immediacy. We would look at them with apprehension instead of reverence. Walking on and around them would bring unease instead of tranquility.
They would not watch the world with the age-old wisdom they have now. Wisdom is earned. It is earned across time. They could not impart that wisdom if what they stood for was the work of a mere moment.
I want to think that a jump cut to my ideal future—one where I am safe and loved—is what I want; as if I would be comfortable with that safety and belonging.
I would not.
I know that much.
I am still learning how to feel safe in my body and to feel safe in the world. I am learning how to feel safe showing vulnerability. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a touchstone of belonging. You cannot build relationships in which you are your own pillar, never relying on another for support. Belonging comes when you allow yourself to be part of something else. You build connection, you build love, you allow yourself to immerse, and then you have opened the door for belonging.
To skip the interim skips everything necessary to build a sense of belonging.
If I do not take the time to determine what I like, I will not know how to spend my time.
If I do not know how to spend my time, I will spend my time doing the things I have always done.
If I spend my time doing the things I’ve always done, I will learn no more about myself.
If I learn no more about myself, I will not grow.
If I do not grow, I will stay as I am.
If I stay as I am, I will maintain my walls that prevent me from welcoming safety and connection. A jump to the future removes my necessary path to safety and belonging.
There must be an interim. I must build my path to the future. I must lay the stones.
Walking at lunchtime is selecting a stone.
Noticing neighborhoods is selecting a stone.
Realizing I want a yard where I might get to lay and watch the stars at night or walk in the mud after work or keep chickens is selecting a stone.
Thinking about work and whether I like my job and whether I feel fulfilled is a stone.
Noticing the feelings in my chest and the thoughts in my head is a stone. Inspecting my yearning and what my yearning means is a stone.
Thinking about what wanting means to me is a stone.
Considering what I want is a stone.
Planning how to get what I want is a stone.
Each moment of each day has a place on the path I build. It all leads to the future I seek. There is no other way to get there than to simply start walking.
The sense that I am waiting for something to happen in order for my life to really begin denies the necessary work of living. Each day and each day’s decisions play a role in setting up my future—all aspects of it. Picturing only the end goal will stop anything in its tracks. It stops before it can even start. It limits, it defines, it confines.
I get caught up in the broad strokes and the big questions. I wait for a big and clear answer that will grasp me firmly by the chin and demand my attention, and, as a result, I only ask the big questions.
When is the something going to happen that will make me feel like I belong?
What will it be that finally makes me feel safe?
What do I have to say about my time in this wide, wide world?
I think so much about the jump cut and the big questions and the something that could arrive any day now that I forget that none of these will come in with a roaring answer. The something may possibly come and start the work that will change everything, but it will not announce its arrival. I will not recognize it for what it is. And there is unlike to be one something that sets my course in the way I seek. The true significance of a moment often does not settle until much, much later. I cannot wait for a roaring something or a picturesque answer to my big questions because nothing will come and I will wait for so long I will end up doing nothing at all. I will make no decisions, I will say nothing.
This waiting will bring me nothing, just like none of my questions have answers. Not one singular answer, anyways. The closest thing to answers are the stones I pick to build my path forward. Moment by moment, day by day. Trying things and seeing what comes of it. Meeting people and seeing what I learn. Saying the things I think instead of waiting for the perfect answer as to what I have to say about Life and My Time On Earth, I should simply say the thing I think.
Those are stones.
Those will build me my path.
They will take me to my future.
