The Nebulous Caboose Tumbles Down the Black Hillside

There are times when I foget not only who I am, but also, who I am to be. Let me explain...

When Hansel and Gretel decided to drop their crumbs and go deep into the dark woods, how could they have ever known the greedy birds would eat their trail, leaving them with no way home? Why they couldn't have known! But I do wonder if only in leaving behind part of themselves they could become something different.

Of course I completely deny that we can ever leave behind us the things we have done and the person we have been, but I do feel that we come to occasional crossroads, though often inconspicuous crossroads, where we decide what luggage we will carry on the train and what luggage we will commit to the nebulous caboose that will inevitably derail at the first bend in the road and be lost forever.

The question of if we choose our destination or if it chooses us will always remain mysterious, but it seems clear that we are always moving towards something. The places we go are many and far between: God, love, self-destruction, possibility, for some simply death is the destination pressed against the stretching horizon we reach for.

Crossroads cut through our paths, bends offer derailment, but we can never leave the tracks to which our life, our soul really, anchors us down to. I look ahead and see a bend fast approaching and consider adjusting my pace to negotiate. Then again, everyone loves a good train wreck.

Hansel and Gretel left themselves behind. And when you do that, you have two choices: One, you can go back and find the person who you were. Or you can let that person derail and watch the nebulous caboose tumble down the black hillside, lost forever. Either way, we still move towards something.

Choosing not to choose is absolutely a choice.