Here I am, on the road again. Walking down. Crossing the smelly stream, made up mostly of sewage water mixed with detergents from people washing their clothes in the same mixture further up the little valley that it has eaten into the soil over centuries. I'm 2 meters above it. Feels like being 2 meters below it.
Decay is omnipresent here. Like everywhere. Time gnaws on material. And bodies. And souls. It's easy to go downhill, to the smelly stream. Being young and in good shape, uphill away from it isn't too bad, either. "Everything is training," my father used to say. He just turned 67 a month ago. Time gnawed on him, too. Mostly his body and mind. His spirit and soul seem to keep thriving. It's an interesting observation. I've lost my father to a stroke, the core remained, and a new father sprouted. An even more admirable one.
Just keep walking. What else is there to do? Sit down and pretend? You can't lie to yourself. That hypocrisy will be the root of your unhappiness. Scrap that paint off, leave it be. If you want to change, don't change the paint, but what's underneath it, so you don't need the paint anymore.
Time just keeps ticking, and it's 20 to midnight every second of the day. The next 20 minutes can always be the last. Not of your life. Maybe of your happiness. Your tranquility. Or absolutely the contrary. The last 20min of your suffering. Of your anxiety. Of your pain. Shit happens, good and bad, and suddenly life changes.
There's no way around it all, so I just keep walking. Down the hill. Up the hill. To the courthouse. Round and round it goes. There's nothing really going on, the clerks always behind schedule, and every time they say they'd get right to it. And two days later, I'm there again, for the same reason, with the same result. With the same pain, and no relief. It feels eternal.
In the last 6 months of pushing that boulder, they've taken down the statues next to the courthouse, and replaced them with new ones, still wrapped in plastic. When will they be revealed? Before or after my case moves forward? Mt. Imabura in the background doesn't care, time is different for mountains.
I woke the dog when I entered the space where the statues are placed. Given his look and leg positioning, he might be the only one doing some judging in that courthouse. Me. For waking him up. I'm sorry. I repent.
Sparkles catch my eye, remnants of the sunlight falling on shattered glass that nobody cares to clean and has since then been ground almost to dust. A little more and it will be sand again. Just like a random piece of concrete that had the misfortune to be pushed to the side of the plate, hourly fabricated, meant to last but poised to fail. The molecular strive for equal distribution in space wasn't powerful enough withstand the other forces at play.
The pain is just the opposite side of being able to love that much, that intensively, that unconditionally. I'm so glad that it's pain that tortures me, and not hate. I guess I did make a lot of progress throughout all the therapies. Projecting most of it inward, not against others, but within a space that I can control. I rather have the pain gnaw on me every second than giving into what I consider wrong, evil even.
And yes, of course I'm trying to motivate myself, to justify it for myself here. Because right now, it feels impossible to uphold again. Writing it down helps to hold myself accountable. A good look into the mirror, resisting my own stare. To hit the breaks. To breathe.
Everything seems broken and ugly these days. I try to make the best out of it. Connecting pictures with thoughts, with stories. I hope it wasn't too bad of a read, and that you found something within my pictures.
Thank you for stopping by!
All pictures are taken by myself with a Motorola Edge 60 Pro and I reserve the copyright - but you're welcome to ask if you'd like to use one of the pics!
