Lamar Howell's Weblog

READ A THOUSAND MILES

I could read for a thousand miles, traversing a whole continent of ideas, cross mountains of lofty ideals or valleys of arguments won or lost, deserts of chilled-out mental overload.

I could do it a top speed, against great yet powerless opposing winds of doctrine, creating dust clouds of speed-reading and overusing, guzzling down gallons of dreams I liked and letting go of the others in the black exhaust of rejection.

Or I could move slowly, stopping at every period or semi-colon and stare down at the ground, demanding it belch up its truth. I could loop back or do parenthetical phrases of rabbit trails and distracted thought-bits, and forgetful bridge-outs.

I could chug-a-lug through commas’ frozen triplet expressions, waiting for the perfect clauses to catch up. I could laugh at the new notion-entrepreneur inventors on their training wheels of babble, or scoff at the illegitimate paradigms of thought bursting or birthing into the world in Caesar-Romeo sleekness and slippery style.

Yet for all the Highway 66 and California Route 1 print I covered, if I failed to see the purpose of my concepts trip, or the object of my pursuit, it would have been a waste: wrinkly-forehead white and yellow lines, black and blue zigzagging confusion, and number numbness of the brain.

So, I’ll put on my flip-flops of contemplation and walk. Listen to the wind that is and not the wind that is made, move when inspired and rest when tired. Lie down and watch the imprinted black-ink constant constellations, take comfort in the bedtime-story starry hosts, let the firmament of heaven cover me with that peace-of-mind blanket, and feel that affirming warm hush of a simple “Good night, child.”