A friend once kidded, I’m the type who does not have any problems with falling asleep anywhere. Once in college, my friends Bob and Angie got curious when they spotted me sitting alone on the grass, leaning under a goal post. Approaching slowly to see what could be wrong, they found me with my mouth open and snoring without a care. Now, thinking back, how I wish I still had that same superpower. Things are so much different now.
Indeed, there must be some truth in the saying about the mind being a workshop of some kind. Truth be told, even in sleep, there’s always that constant churning inside my head on how I should go about any dream sequence, as in, step by painful step. Whenever I dream of writing, for example (which is often), it’s not the writing process that takes much of my dream time. It’s the editing part. Yes, Dr. Watson, even in sleep, I’m always trying to rewrite whatever it is I’m doing. In the end, the tossing and turning from all of that wakes me up, and surely, with that quality of sleep, rest is far from coming.
By early morning, while still groggy from battling night demons from hours before, the waking hours take center court, and with these comes a menu of endless chores, plus all else the outside world throws your way. Often, during these moments, I think back to the old goal posts of my past and long for when rest was easy and as innocent as a lean-to.
However not till recently, I also realized they can be much easily replaced by the hills and mountains around us that’s far away from the crunching hold of the city and its noise. It’s a rediscovery of sorts for others like myself, when one plants one’s feet firmly on any of these mother nature’s abodes, you’re right away transported to a dream-like haven where peace of mind is real.
Up there, you’re right away aware, we should consider ourselves blessed still, with our kind’s ongoing rape of the forests and natural resources, we still have these green hills and mountains to enjoy and be at one with. I’ve in fact recently met some new friends who have made retreats high up in the boondocks, and admittedly I thought for a while, swell, they could afford it. Yet much later, I slowly appreciated how their love of nature was as genuine as their efforts to preserve and restore it as their precious side of nature. It was then, too, I remembered long ago some olden indigenous leaders who thought and fought for the same goals: keep the land as pristine as they found it. And they didn’t have the shield of titles to have a go at it.
No different these two are, especially when it comes to their dreams of what the world should be. Yet when you look too closely, it boggles the mind so, theirs is not an enviable role. Ignorance is still bliss. With much shame, I’d go back to sleeping under goalposts if I could.
