Hindsight and Pride

Friday, May 29, 2015 9:37 am

Cramped /krampt/

adjective

Uncomfortably small or restricted.

With my elbows pressed against the seat and window, my legs jammed up on the seat in front of me, and my laptop bent almost closed due the angle, I was feeling rather cramped as I typed my paper on the bus.

Some humor in the early morning hours.

We’re leaving Cagliari, heading to the east to the high mountains and the most rural villages. It is shaping up to be a packed weekend, and my head spins whenever I try to comprehend the distances we’ve traveled.

Maybe I should stop typing (trying), I’m getting carsick.

Saturday, May 30, 2015. 2:49 am

I can’t write. I’m trying: my fingers ache and tremble, gnarled with an arthritis that spreads slowly through my knuckles and up my wrists. My heart is clumsy, and no helmet protects it when it stumbles and stutters, when it trips and falls. So maybe I won't write tonight, maybe I'll open my window and lean out into my cinderblock and colored plaster city, and watch the moon rise. 

Sunday, May 31, 2015 3:11 pm

Hindsight is 20/20, or so they say. For me it’s still 20/300 no matter which way I’m looking, even when my eyes are seeing straight back through my skull.

And that’s why I wear contacts. I correct the blurred tints and darks into mountains and valleys that grew as we left the bread basket plains and headed to the Province of Nuoro.

Sometimes it builds inside me. Sometimes I itch with a restlessness rooted so deep within my bones that they contort from the pressure. Suddenly my bright flares up like a kiln and the glass in my eyes melts under the sparks; the fear vaporizes: gone without glancing back.

In the last two days, I was privledged with the culture of a people who wear their spirituality and their pride in their clothes and traditions.

In the last two days, I spoke my thoughts, without fear of consequence or retribution, with a voice that sounded like someone I once saw in my smile.

In the last two days, I climbed a mountain to the edge of the timber line, and gazed upon a wooded horizon, wearing arch-less shoes that have wandered many a mile. 

In the last two days, I saw the stars in all their bright, and wondered if they could see me too.

In the last two days, I wandered the path and witnessed the two million year struggle of a river dreaming of finding the ocean

.

In the last two days, I boarded a vessel and sailed on the sea and, wind stinging my eyes and a shy sun peeking out from the clouds, I saw what fear made me miss.

In the last two days, I dove off a cliff into a crystal clear, salty green sea, and swam with friendly fish and fishy friends.

Are you proud of me? Can you see me? Can you see my pride, my bliss?

I am. I can. I do.