Lunch time for me provides a chance to explore. I often eat a packed lunch in my car at some location with a view and listen to NPR’s Fresh Air and afterwards climb free of the German womb of my Jetta and venture forth into a retail menagerie. Sometimes it’s Lowe’s or Menards where I exchange the wrong sized wing nut, sometimes it’s PetCo to watch the feretts, sometimes is the Gap Outlet store to see whats hip. Sometimes it’s Salvation Army to see if I can stumble upon the “Porsche in the barn” and find a vintage Technics receiver or Russel Wright pitcher.
Today as I was in route to my chosen destination for an hour of pondering I came across this sight.
Just over the fence...freedom on the horizon and across the field of black.
There before me, in the ghost of what was once a mall, was a rock in the road. Not only did I need to heed for its presence for fear that my alignment would be completely whacked, it struck me as so poetic.
There…just 2 feet from it’s “fence”, was an escapee. This softball size rock had jumped the fence and made a run for it. Like a deer in the headlights, there is was…frozen as if to belive that if it stood still enough, know one would notice it. And it could continue its quest for freedom. Further its journey towards it’s life’s goal…which would be what for a rock?…return to Montana and be part of the Continental Divide?…jump into the Little Manistee and cause current for trout to hide behind?…be selectivley chosen by an artesian masonry and placed in a chimney?…chosen by some young romantic and plucked off the beach only to forever serve as a paperweight or attribute in an aquarium?
Trying to pass as an intended feature...maybe a speed bump?
I had to stop and place this rebel back in its current purgatory. I did so to prevent some un-expecting driver from bounding over it and careening off the road but what I wanted to do was toss the thing into the wild and help it with its Steve McQueen like great escape.
Conform you rebel soul. Back to the chambers with you.
Now, even though it’s only been a few days, I look at all things similar in a different way. Trash that has blown against a fence over the winter and been glued there, plastic bags that seem to be aimlessly and in a bit of a panic, darting from lane to lane on the highway. If we could hear what these lifeless things are saying what would it be? A plea for help? A moment of rejoice for freedom? Who knows…really…who knows? This is the thing that novels are made from. The seed that germinates into gardens for those who live in the moment and are open to creativity.
Any rock can roll which is movement. And movement equates to growth if your heart and soul are open to it…even for a rock, which can become a seed for a story, which can become a world crafted only by each individual reader.
see think share 