There is a secret world waiting to be shared with the one and the few who are offered entrance into it. Under endless blue skies we ride in our car into a future we can’t see but with more excitement than fear.
It is because some of us recognize the biggest regrets in life come from the chances you don’t take and the doors you choose not to open. It is not always easy to take that chance because uncertainty and insecurity chip away at bravery and present fear as prudence.
But those who are willing to be brave for a moment understand that there are amazing worlds living underneath the surface of the sea. Some call them secret worlds and say they can only be shared with a few but the great contradiction is that some secrets are hidden in the open.
I feel like I am looking down upon my body. I see myself sitting in the chair, fingers flying across the keyboard as I try to show you what lies beneath the surface of my mind.
The man in the chair just published She Saved My Heart and now he is staring out the window but I am not sure what he is looking at or if he is thinking about anything.
I see him surfing through posts and reading one called Spit Or Swallow. He stops to read a quote contained within and I can hear the wheels turning inside his head.
Harris: I’ve been thinking about myself and I think I can become the kind of person that’s worth you staying for. First of all, I’m a man who can cry. Now it’s true, it’s usually when I’ve hurt myself, but it’s a start. You see I know there is something that would make you stay, I know it. I know there is some move I can make, the right word, attitude, plan. But these are all just tricks, just things I would think up and try. So let’s forgo that.
Let’s assume that whatever that thing is, that whatever it is that would make you stay has already occurred, that it has happened and that my hand has already gone down your throat and grabbed your heart and squoze it.
He is nodding his head because he thinks this will help illustrate some point. He thinks it will help build an understanding and that understanding will lead to connection but I am not sure.
I am not sure if he is thinking clearly. I am not sure if he recognizes what is going on because he can be single minded of purpose and that doesn’t always lend itself to the outcomes a person wants or wishes for.
He waves a hand at me and shakes his head. It angers me. I won’t be dismissed this easily.
“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.†― Robert Frost
The words stop me in my tracks. I don’t know if I heard them, read them or if they were painted upon the blackboard of my mind but they are stunning.
He is awake and I am awake which I suppose means we are awake because I am him and he is me.
“How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?†― Robert Frost
These words are written upon my heart. I understand them intellectually and emotionally and recognize that I am not who I was or who I thought.
I am someone different and deeper but without having experienced it all I could never have been who I have chosen to become. One doesn’t dance in the fire without evolving.
Thirty years ago off the coast of Maui I spent an eternity under the sea. The air tank on my back made it possible to float far beneath the surface while those armed only with snorkels were able to take a minute to see the wonders that lay below.
It was the secret world that lay waiting for those who knew how to enter it. I watched tiny air bubbles float towards the surface and wondered if they carried word of the promises I made to come back and to share this secret world.
Decades later I have become who I said I would be and yet I am not him at all. I am the man working on becoming him.
Walking the line through rings of fire towards a promise of somewhere down the road.
Every night I look for the ghost riders in the sky and prepare myself to move when I see them again because the next time I see the riders come I won’t watch them pass me by.
The next time I will find the entrance to the secret world again and this time I’ll make a copy of the key.
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