Footsteps in the Frost

I have always enjoyed the feel of the sun on my face when there has been a heavy frost overnite, and this day begins just as it should with old friends greeting me. The frost will be gone in an hour or so, disappearing in a cloud of gas that has a dream like smokey haze. Water, what a wonderful molecule, useful in all its' forms; such as, solid, liquid, and gas. That occurs to me as the sun turns it into diamonds, glistning on the grassy fields around me, winking with amusement at me as I walk along. Water doesn't need me, it is constantly busy building and remodeling, and it knows I can't live without it.

I turn and look behind me at the trail and see the footsteps in the frosty grass, for a moment I think, someone must be following me, but they belong to me. Yet, still, am struck with the thought that someone does follow, and as I return to the forward trail this thought haunts me. I turn again and see the imprints of the treads of my boots slowly fading as the frost transforms from solid to liquid to gas and rises in a thin white cloud to meet the sun.

It is often true, that simpicity and clairity are really the same concept, and insight depends on the simple and clear. I feel I have always been followed and even, at times, been blocked and held prisoner by burdensome emotional events of childhood, that I am now all to familiar with. They, now, neither hold or obstruct my path, but follow in their place far behind where they belong. They will be there forever fading as the steps in morning frost. Just like the water doesn't need me I don't need them anymore. I am no longer the solid trapped in rigid boundries for I am free to run and rise.

Expectations

How many times before have I stood at these trail heads, looking out at the path that lies before me, with not a thought about what I expect from myself as I forage ahead. Certainly, there is some thought about the physical achievement, and the excitement of sensory stimulation that lies ahead, but I am also aware of new expectations. I begin this journey carrying a greater insight into my self, and a deep understanding of the history that has brought me to this place.

George Santayana once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," and I am determined to no longer repeat my past. For I have touched that past and have made my peace with it. Santayana's quote in context is,"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience."

I have regained my past and the memories that had changed me in an absolute manner. I have been persistent and deliberate in examining the nuances of past experiences and setting new directions. As Santayana also says,"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool." The child in me now cries and validates what was sad, and my maturity laughs with abandon while weeping in joy at a self that is reborn.