Getting There From Here

I have a theory (actually, many theories, but I'll talk about this one for now). This can be dangerous because I have a tendency to forget that my theories are just theories; I want to believe that the world(s) in my head and the world that parades itself before my senses are the identical, even though I know better. In other words, I start to think I understand far more than I actually do or ever will. Believing in something comes easily; knowing is a bit harder to achieve. But real understanding is that rarest and most elusive of mental states, the kind I only get glimpses of out of the corner of my eye for a few seconds every hundred years or so.

That said, according to my (still-only-a) theory, we are all pilgrims; we're all looking for someplace sacred. My theory says that most of us don't know how to find that destination, or don't know what the destination is, or don't even know we're on the road looking. We simply wander about where ever we've been placed, or we strike out purposefully in a direction but no matter how far we travel can never get a sense that we've arrived.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if my theory were correct?

It would explain so much, so much frustration, boredom, anger, distrust, ambition, desire, competitiveness in the eyes of the people I've encountered. In my own eyes in the mirror too.

When I think of someone's actions that make no sense to me--like mine--it helps me to imagine this person (to imagine myself) as lost,which is often what I am. When I become impatient with my children, so often it comes from a sense tha this place we inhabit emotionally, physically, spiritually is not the place we ought to be, not where we belong. If we could get there somehow, we would be different.

In that place, I wouldn't be afraid for my kids' futuere, I wouldn't wonder about the kind of men they'll turn out to be.
In that place, I wouldn't doubt that I can be the father they deserve and need.
In that place, I wouldn't cling to my failings whenever life doesn't turn out as I'd hoped.
In that place, my house and my income wouldn't be too small, or my belly too large.

I believe that place exists because I've been there: when my boys were babies and we ran in the park or I sang them to sleep; when I've hard the sound of the ocean crashing, beyond my sight in the darkness on the far side of the dunes; over and over with my wife when we're together, doing nothing at all. It's a place where everything is enough to be just what it is.

So I've found it, i just don't know how to stay there. But maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe the question is how to take it with me, how to wear it through the world. I have a feeling that when I really get there, it's going to look a lot like where I am now, but the one doing the looking won't be the same.