stones

i carry stones in my pockets. when life gets incomprehensible, i go out and i find a stone that seems like it's too big for my pocket. sometimes the size of my fist; sometimes smaller, sometimes lake-smooth and sometimes jagged, just formed. can i tell you why?

because they remind me of the ephemeral value of life itself. they remind me that stones remain, after i'm gone. they remind me that the little bit of earth in my pocket was once a part of a much bigger portion of earth--part of the whole. it fell away, was bathed for years in water, or tumbled along the ground until edges were smoothed. perhaps it made its mark on some greater thing; perhaps a child used it to mark up the pavement, or someone propped open doors.

it has a story that, being silent and compressed earth, it will never share.

it pokes into my leg, when i lean against the counter. it hurts me. it reminds me that i am human, and that as a human, i can be hurt. sometimes hurt is hard to put your finger on, the internal hurt of someone else's pain, or the agony of being hurt yourself and being unable to describe it. but the pain of that little stone, the way my pants hang a bit to one side because there is no counter balance in the other pocket--that is a reminder, to me.

of what does it remind me? that after i am gone, you could take this stone and give it to someone else, and it would carry on. the stone is eternal. if i back my car over it, nothing will happen to the stone.

should i be more like this stone? should i be small, silent, gray? i don't honestly know how long it takes to form a stone this size. forever, it seems. years, and years. and decades, more time than i can fathom while staring around my cat at the words i'm typing. it is supposed to be where it is, right now--in my pocket, reminding me to be patient, reminding me that if i remain true to the things that i feel are important, i will stay true to the unformed self.

i know that this stone has been in the rain. i'm sure it's been covered by snow. it perseveres. it doesn't know what it is; it doesn't know what it does for me and my journey. someday soon i'm sure i'll pick up my jeans and it will roll to the floor, small thunk in the carpet. if dan picks it up, he will put it on my dresser, knowing my affinity for stones. if someone else finds it, maybe they will put it in their pocket. or the garbage. or just back outside again.

maybe it will roll a hole in my pocket, when it's done being carried about and used as a tool for my brain. one day it'll just be gone--from me. or i will be gone from it.

either way, five hundred years from now, this stone will still be.

can i tell you why it's in my pocket, today? it's a reminder that it is OKAY to be changed, over time. it's OKAY for me to be hurt, and not quite understand the depth of it, or understand if i am as hurt as perhaps i think i "have" to be. it's OKAY for me to be worn down by what is going on in my life--this is a big thing that's going on right now. it's OKAY for me to feel the love i feel for the person i do, and not quite fully understand the way i feel it; i think i'm supposed to be hurt, but part of the hurt is counteracted by the joy. it's like being partly cloudy out--it's also partly sunny at the same time. it's OKAY to forgive; it's OKAY for me to move around in this limbo world, and see how the hurt and the joy are both conflicting and making me anew in their own ways.

this is on a pretty optimistic day; ask me again later, see the pessimistic side. (;

joy, i think, can sometimes be just as frightening as pain, because you're half afraid the whole time that it might someday not be there or be like this again. when i lean against the wall, the stone will press into my left hip. it will remind me that perhaps the pain i'm feeling, and somedays the joy, will abate--someday the rain will stop and the sun will be out, and i can't see it yet. someday maybe i can take this stone out of my pocket, until i feel ready to put it in my pocket again.

it reminds me that no one, as sark says, calls an elephant fat. no one says a tree is ugly, for being pushed and reworked by the wind and water.

i am constantly being reworked--by emotions, by morals, by the ethical struggle of being human. being human is, in its own way, being made of stone--i think that i am fully formed, but time makes me realize that i am simply earth made flesh, susceptible to more than fire and rain--and in the end, it is just fine and dandy for me to be made this way, over and over again, and to feel the way i do.

for now, it's in my pocket.