BUCKWHEAT NOODLES ON A BUCKET

Journal Excerpt 08/27/2021:

The clouds hurry across the sky, changing shapes as the imagination sees fit. The birds appear for a moment overhead as they catch the wind - hanging, swooping, diving - before disappearing over the hillside. The grass dances and the leaves shutter in the breeze. Sweet sage and the smell of recent rain fills the air. The cold breath from the mountains exhale is felt on my face as the rains begin to cease, meanwhile, the sun pierces through the dense cloud layer and adds to the mixed feeling of being chilled and warmed at the same time.

And there I am. There I am sitting on a bucket I use for trash, eating buckwheat noodles I just made out of the back of my car I’ve been living in for several months, gazing into the Rockies. In a moment life seems peculiar. No, absurd. So absurd it’s almost humoral. Enshrouded by the spell of time upon me - my past, present, and indistinguishable future - I can’t help but ponder why am I here, and not over there? How did I end up here, and not elsewhere? Was it through self desire? Self-governed choices influenced by expectations? Destiny? A mix of my own personality and past experiences? Coincidence? A shake of the dice? All the above? What difference does it make anyways…

But to think I was somehow planted into existence on a life-sustaining planet in an unimaginably large universe with all its peculiarities and possibilities and now I’m here…in this spot…sitting on a bucket eating noodles tracing the jagged horizon with my eyes…well it is, in fact - at least to me - idyllically and utterly absurd.

I sat there for a while, amused and curious by my current circumstance, trying to think back to all the decisions and experiences that might have lead me to my current state: sitting on this loathsome bucket of remarkable utility and the good fortune of living out of my car in a place of immeasurable beauty. Futile in my efforts, I quickly found myself considering all the big questions about life and meaning, existence and purpose, and - as it seems most lengthy ponderings end up, even from the most brilliant of minds regarding such topics - realized such considerations would remain unresolved for the time being. But what I did know, as I sat there eating my noodles on a bucket, was that I was right there. Here.

Yes, I am here, and that is something, not nothing. I’m here breathing and thinking, living and learning, loving and laughing, crying and burning with a passion for adventure and everything else that comes with what it means to be a human participating in this grand narrative of no discernible ending.

Yes, I am here indeed, and to me, that is everything - not nothing - worth living for. And that’s where I want to be. And if that means sitting on a bucket eating buckwheat noodles staring into the mountains…well, it’s certainly fine by be.