A cacophony of random thoughts mingle in my mind. It seems that they are the same thoughts every day, but in varying degrees. Some days one series of ideas will be most prevalent, and other days an entirely different set will take over; often filling me with doubt at the thoughts I had before.
To-Day: It was dark out. The sky was clear, cobalt blue nearing black and stars pin-prick-popped their way into sight the farther I got from the city lights. Each time I drove to the top of a hill I glanced in my rear view mirror to catch the giant pumpkin orange moon swaying above the horizon before it disappeared as I descended into another valley. Two things popped in to my mind, one so familiar and comforting I'd forgotten how often I overlook it. The other an oddity I've never given much thought to, but all the same was once a source of great worry for me. As long as the sky is clear on my drive home I can steal a few glances out my drivers side window and see, without fail, Orion's Belt hovering close enough to the top of the Sooke Hills that it isn't obscured by the roof of my car. Every time I have looked for it, it has been there; unwavering, unassuming, concrete; a presence I can count on. And I do. Like a parent it's there when I am looking for reassurance and support. What terrifies me is the day, too, will come when I can no longer see either. A few minutes before I reach my home I pass a giant rosary. Where this rosary comes from, why it is where it is and the purpose for putting it there have all eluded me. I can not, however, pass the rosary without remembering the man who so diligently sat at it's foot, day in and day out for as many years back as I can recall, holding a card board sign counting down the days to the world's end. Many times I marvelled first at his ability to endure below freezing temperatures so early in the morning, before I realized his sign read one day closer to Armageddon than it had the day before. As an eight year old, as a nine year old and as a ten year old I grappled with the idea that one particular man could be so accurate in judging something so final. One day his sign declared that the next would be the day on which the world would end. I was petrified. Having never been a religious child I prayed to Allah, God, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus, Athena, and my dead cats for good measure. The day after the world was supposed to end started like any normal day, as did every day after. The man never returned and I have always wondered; just where did he go?

The other thing I have been thinking about is this quote by Thoreau:

"Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played."

I think of this quote, and then I think about all the conflict in the world, all the oppression and disarray and I wonder how he was able to isolate himself enough from such anarchy to appreciate the unabashed beauty around him. Was he an idealist? Did he prefer not to see that which he did not want to acknowledge? Or was it the opposite? Did he feel that by placing emphasis on beauty it would help people to overcome their differences? To unite over the simplicity of life and the appreciation of a force greater than human disruption and disturbance. The cynic in me wants to scream, to get angry. Why all this idealistic bullshit while pain and suffering rise exponentially all around? Why close your eyes and imagine fields and flowers when all surrounding you are mud flats and smoke stacks. Smoke stacks from fires, set by hatred and despair.
"Under the rocking sky...tottering crazy on its smoking columns." -- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

But life as well is about choices; decisions made, decisions left behind. Every time we come to a cross road we must choose the path our life will take. Sometimes it is the right choice, often it is not. Perhaps it is only in retrospect that we can truly see what we have left behind.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
For it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

--Robert Frost

Oh, life and its deviance's. Where will this path take me next?