Life lately has been like the little wheel in the cage that the animals run in for exercise. Except a few of the little steps are removed either by choice or chance. We can run, run, walk, walk, but trip and stumble. Fall. Look up and the wheel with others on it goes merrily on. Except the others don’t look so happy either. We all think we need to make that next step but when the step needs a leap whatever to do. It’s a messy segue to a day doing archeology on Edwards Air Force Base eons ago with my friend and boss Rick. We found this artifact on a large prehistoric site. We both stared intently at it. I finally just had to ask.
Rick what the hell is this thing?
Rick smiled and turned it over in those large calloused hands but finally nodded a craggy head
Mike, its a parfumdafloiter
Mystery solved. Of course this particular artifact was completely unknown to us or what it could potentially be for. Another anthropologist I knew would always tell me it was ritual. An easy out for him. Finally, my mentor and friend RWR would tell me of these things,
you cannot excavate an idea
Perhaps you cannot see the leap of faith from a wheel with steps missing to tapping the unknown in archeology. It seems slim to me too but hey. I just write these things. So let’s see.
The artifact took a leap of faith or a guesstimate by us. Now the wheel clatters around and we all want that step beyond this one. It’s a leap. The steps around us broken. So we still go. Some fall short and regroup. Others don’t even try. Some number of us make it. We look back. Look forward. Nothing is any different. Well damn.
So having some penultimate guess what this could all mean or not is we find our parfumdafloiters in life. Sometimes on that next step. Sometimes it’s an idea. Or a person. A goal. A thing. I don’t do goals any more. Waste of time but what I do think of are ideas. Ideas are these artifacts that Rick and I found. Some piece is missing. We need a leap. Of faith, love. Belief. And we go toward our own missing step.
The wheel spinning. The steps missing. Ideas out of thin air. Like an Alexander Supertramp looking toward that next wild. It could be back or forth. Pieces missing. Ideas.
I’ve thought a lot lately about what I have. It’s not stuff. Not things really. It’s one person. My wife. And sometimes it hurts when I write here. I see this person. Love her. Need her. Want her. There are steps missing to her sometimes. We talk. I tell her. She agrees. The house must go. It blocks us. Limits us stepping to the next step. Too many family engaged. Too difficult to make sure they have steps too.
So I wait. Next week Mom leaves for her province. I’ll miss her. She is no broken thing. With no English she has more to offer in the house with unconditional love and hugs. And telling me in Khmer she loves me.
Ideas broken. Artifacts lost. Found.
This blogpost also ends. Mind your step.