Friday, May 19, 2006

Stealth Missions

A strange thought hit me tonight. When these thoughts come into my mind, I have a tendency to reflect on my past. Reflecting on my past usually opens a box of stories and all these memories spill out.

I have lived so many lives. I have seen so many things. I have formed so many memories. The following is one of them. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

I dropped into the chute and surveyed my surroundings. The chute was dangerously steep and bordered by high, rocky cliffs. I shifted my weight over my snowboard and descended lower into the valley. The snow underneath me shifted and swayed like a soft summer wave. It was so lush and so soft.

It was so iniquitously deep.

I eased the pressure off my back foot and turned straight for the cliff drop a mere 10 feet from the nose of my board. I had been in this position so many times before, and yet each time I wondered why I kept doing it. I had many concussions, many separated bones, many an oft fractured tailbone...and yet.

It is the freedom of it all. It is the flow of consciousness into a space where all that matters is the rush and the survival.

My speed picked up and I could feel the snow catch my board and throw up little waves of white here; there; and everywhere.

I remember thinking about another time when I was high up on a launching platform of a different sort. I listened to my heavy breathing in my ears, felt my heart thump, thump, thump blood as it raced into my veins and became liquid adrenaline.

Only a few feet now. I smile in anticipation.

Flash goes the photograph in my head as I regress back to that night as my whole world ran before me; all out of control. I taste the fear on my lips from the terror of what I was about to do. I think my heart stopped its mad crazy, thump, thump, thumping.

I feel the rush of insanity flail my bones with glee and vicious laughter.

The chute bottom ends out into a freefall into nothing. I spring off the lip of snow like a cheetah springing off a boulder unto its fresh prey. My breath freezes in my throat and for that brief utter split of time there is nothing but me; my soul; and my freedom.

I flash back in that stolen fraction of time and remember nothing from another moment of flight. I cringe for something I do not recall a memory of. I cringe for the crunch I never actually felt but still hold in the basin of my past.

Then, suddenly, the ground rushed up at me and I explode with a pop of snow and an explosion of a white heaven. I surfed the deep pockets of powder and the memory from that night faded away into a hushed whisper and a promise that it would always return.

I sit here and realize that I am almost done my last round of personal edits. That tomorrow morning I will be printing off my first manuscript and couriering it to my editor. I think of all the stories it contains; all the emotions; all the personal hardships.

I laugh and wonder if it will be read.

It is almost ready now; one more step in so many more to come. I reflect on all the stories that have come; ponder the ones that have yet to make an appearance. But I know there is so much time.

My quest for peace is what pushes me on. To be more; to become more; to see more. To find satisfaction of seeing a beautiful sunset, to see a loved one smiling at me, to hold her hand as she holds mine. Peace, my friends, peace. It was what held my body together not so many years ago; it was what held my life together in the shambles of insanity. It held broken bones together and refused to allow me to break again.

Ever since I have started this website, there have been numerous references to a book, to a fraction of images that have never been truly explained. But it will all be explained in time and my story will be there for all to read. We desire the reality of flesh and blood; we desire it to transport us into our memories and allow permission to live through another's eyes. To dream with another.

Dreams are for the making for us one and all. Until we meet again, my friends, until we meet again.

"I've had a chance to be insane, asylum from the falling rain...I've had a chance to break."
- Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers