Spotlight

There is a spotlight on the water. It is cast by the moon, smudged and hazy overhead, and yet managing to bathe the night - the theatre stage, the audience - in a white glow.

I'm sitting on an outcrop of rock by the water. I'm watching the ripples of water in the cove as they catch the moon's rays. I can hear fish surfacing to eat their evening snack. Or maybe it's just air bubbles bursting on the surface -- it's that quiet. I can hear an animal cleaning and scratching itself by the water's edge. I'm not sure how far away it is as it sounds so close. But I know the water to be easily 10 metres below me.


And suddenly I can see a large body skim through the spotlight and glide toward a shore shadowed from the moon by trees: a muskrat? I envy the muskrat its oneness with this moment. That THIS is the environment it claims as its own. It does not even need to claim -- it just is, and he is just going purposefully about its very ordinary business.

And I'm thinking about my own life and how it is that I came to go about the daily business that I go about. How did it happen?

Can I claim to be as purposeful? I did in fact decide to buy a house. I did aspire to a job that is similar to the one I have in some ways. I did plan a wedding, choosing the man to whom I would become joined for the rest of my days.

Do I conduct my life as oblivious to the beauty that surrounds me? Only to envy an animal who couldn't fathom the natural wonder and serenity of its environment if it wanted to? I feel a tingle through my body, inspired by the muskrat, the silence, the moon.

I do not know what I'm choosing in my current daily life. But I suspect it is not nearly as important or satisfying as it could be.

I want to feel one with an environment. To have a natural place in it. I feel that I force and fidget uncomfortably in my world. I feel there must be more. I can do and be so much more and yet still enjoy my place -- enjoy my life -- and feel excited about it. Feel that I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

For now it is time to bring my contemplations inside by the fire. There is something about the glow within that ironwork - a glow that I must tend to keep alive - that makes me feel at home just now.