A Blank Canvas

This is what I have been staring at for the past ½ hour now….a blank canvas.  Not literally a canvas, but to a writer starring at a blank computer screen…..it’s damned near the same thing!  I am sitting here, encompassed by complete and natural peace.  With the vast expanse of the ocean before me, it’s creatures and life all in unison to the ebb and flow, one would think it is the perfect place to write.  Yet, here I sit, completely dumfounded with a hint of awe, and a blank computer screen. 

Well, I suppose at this point it isn’t blank anymore!  I mean, we do have this much to read.  As an incoming seagull nearly crapped on my head….how is it that they are like cruise missiles in that sense…I hear a buoy dinging out in the water maybe a good mile or more out.  Have you ever noticed that it is so hard to judge distance when you are on land, peering out into the sea?  I suppose the buoy reminds me somewhat of the shifting tide of life itself.  How when life seems calm and uneventful, the buoy remains still and serves only as a silent and visual reminder of it’s purpose.  Then there are the times when even the slightest shift in the sea can cause it to sound off.

 Like a sentry, it stands the sometimes brutal and harsh waters to warn those within it’s earshot that attention need be paid.  It seems to me somewhat symbolic of life itself.  During times of calm our souls, the center of our selves remain in harmony and balance.  Then out of the blue, a rift in this balance can become overwhelming and thrust that harmony, that peace into utter disarray.  Like all good storms thrown at the buoy in the ocean, this too shall pass.  But not without the memory of it’s wounds.  The affliction and regardless assault on your spirit….on your being.  All of a sudden my canvas isn’t so much blank anymore! 

Upon it lies the moments thought, a pondering glimpse, much like the sea itself, into the uncharted questions of life.  But then again, this is foolishness.  Of course these waters are charted.  There is a damned buoy bobbing about!  Someone charted, someone felt the compelled urgency to warn, and someone was rehearsed enough in troubled waters and it’s co-existence with potential disaster amidst a storm to plop a buoy, right there, into the water.  No, this is by no means the first time….this is no pioneering experience.  Many others and many more have been here…..have navigated this rough channel of the sea.  Once again, at times it seems so serene and calm while others it will be a challenge to ride out the waters.  I feel as if I have stumbled upon some great and time honored wisdom as a chorus of seagulls, gathered closely about, squawk with concur.  Or are they all getting ready to pull flight from their perch and pepper my head with….crap!  If you have never spent time on a beach, take note the next time you do that of all the open spaces for such to transpire, the seagull will almost certainly, always find your head. 

No longer is my canvas blank.  Rather it reflects the random thoughts and observations of the moment.  In this case, the moment is not the time at hand, but rather the culmination of moments leading up to this particular point of time.  Confused?  Don’t feel so left out.  If any of it made sense to me it would be a post rather than a well sentenced menagerie of garble.  But relax….not every writer knows what he wants to say all of the time.  Or, maybe he/she does know but fails the ability to convey it in words that make sense.  In my case, here, right now, I just put the words on the screen in an attempt to sort and search for the point, or a way to tie it all in.  I am not sure if I am just slightly challenged, or if other writers would agree, that the further along you proceed with a garbled approach to making sense, the less sense you make and the more difficult it becomes to follow yourself without straying, to the point of complete failure to hold the readers attention.

There has been a calling upon me.  One of which I have never experienced on such a profound and personal level.  It has brought forth feelings of which I am not sure how to deal with much less effectively express.  I came here today to tell a story, and I have failed.  It has been told me many times, that “you have to work through the problem”  No better  a way to direct confusion, than to try and find the block or obstacle which has created it and ‘work it through‘.  Not always the easiest task!  I had an epiphany once.  All of a sudden the answer to many questions came to light!  It was then that I was able to move on this moment and “work through” what troubled me.  The days and weeks that preceded that epiphany were of silence.  Silence of the heart.  Silence of the soul….silence of a very tired mind.  Through silence, I was able to hear the sound of, and discover the solution. 

For now, I have trouble hearing the voices, trouble returning the calls, indecision on which way to turn too now and how to place my energies….much less, what I will be doing tomorrow.  I am having trouble fulfilling the supposed needs of what everyone wants from me.  Like a good storm, “this too shall pass.”  Like the waves in the sea, there will be calm in the days to follow.  Direction will once again become unobscured.  This is not to say that all will fly in tight formation, and the symphony will chime.  This is just to say that once again, some sense and understanding will be found.  In the meantime, “I” am the very least of my concerns. 

It has been said many times throughout my life, that no matter what you think constitutes a level of difficulty, someone, somewhere is going through much worse.  Although this has always made sense to me and I find it the truth, I have trouble drawing the perimeter of ‘what is worse’ in comparison to ‘what’.  What is trouble to one may be grape jelly to another.  Where one finds death to be the end of the world, another could look upon it as a saving grace.  I have always had a problem finding clarity with pain and suffering.  Some find pain and will suffer from a fallen body while another will find pain and suffer from a broken heart.  Which is worse?  It pains me to see either.  So much especially when one has to do with the other.

Yes, this trip has been clouded by some rough reality and somber emotion.  Shock is a better term.  It has left us dumbfounded and lacking a fair understanding.  It has been a swift reminder that life changes in a heartbeat and all you knew one day becomes a distant faded flash into yesterday.  It has brought awareness to this journey and appreciation for all we have shared in life and all which we hold.  My canvas has been filled.  Much like the rendering of an artists painting, it is simply the perception of  a vision or in this case presence of mind and thought.  Some will see this perception with clarity, will relate to the speak and strokes of the brush.  Still others may tilt their head in an attempt to understand.  In the end, it will be seen for what it is.  One thing though, and this is true, that if you view the work of another, you have taken a fleeting glimpse into their reality.   You have seen a brief moment in time, through their eyes.