Skyfold

I would like to close my eyes, pretend I am on a plane, snugly strapped in, and the PA announcements are just finished ... thank you for flying with us, and see you in your future journeys.

Then the plane makes its final descent, the tires burn against the runway, and before I open my eyes, the different kind of quiet that pervades my inner space interrupts, and I am awake.

I am still in my bedroom, semi-frozen, alone.

Realization comes that further introspection may prove to be of less help than it should, but then, so what?  So says Don Juan de Marco, there are only four questions of value in life:

"What is sacred?  Of what is the spirit made?

"What is worth living for ---- and what is worth dying for?" 

His answer, as I mumble in reflex while watching the movie, is love.

It isn't corny at all, and the more I think about it, my apprehension disappears.  Yes, the hard life snaps at my tiller.  Sometimes my confidence gets shaken.  Yet I must keep in mind that I am the helmsman now, as it should have been clear to me years past.

I miss my family dearly.  It should be, and it will be, until I choose to end this exile.  I tried sometime back but it wouldn't take.  Too much to do.  Too awful to contemplate surrender.

Let the next year come, and the next, and the next.  What the sky can hold, that is how much I am ready to lay down before my ticker says, no more.

One more year, one more year.  Onward, that I may encompass not only thousandfold, but skyfold (a word and a pun of my invention) the hopes and dreams of those whom I love.