Chickie’s Rock County Park, Breezeway Overlook, Columbia, Pennsylvania, USA. Visited December 29, 2018.
Every sentence is always inadequate, so a fear of failure has never paralyzed me. That’s not what makes writing difficult. It’s the possibility of success that strikes me as terrifying. What if I succeed? What if, during one of these early-morning moments, the seamless expression of an adjacent world materializes? How do I live with myself?
I have plans for failure. I’ve run the scenarios over and over. I know what to do when words fail me. I’m gentle with myself, forgiving of my hard-and-fast limitations. I accept, more or less, that I’ll miss the mark. I relinquish the ideals of perfection forced upon me, and I keep writing.
To be honest, I enjoy the struggle. Exhausting as it can be, the agitated mind is impressive, the way it finds meaning in everything, from the slick leaves and wet mud, to the circling birds, and the old men reading newspapers in their cars at the Breezyview Overlook parking lot.
I wonder, why don’t I hike more? There’s something satisfying about the reaching the end of a path first thing in the morning.
Then I wonder, if I began every day this way, how long before I tired of it? Days, weeks, months, years? Or just shy of an entire lifetime?
I’m no carefree bird circling the cliff’s edge / and tumultuous river; this rough ledge / and height are treacherous boundaries. / I lean. There’s only so much I can see.
