Thursday, July 2, 2020
Christine Niles
Go
Go to your dreams. Go to your endless possibilities. Go and explore and gain a new view.
Go
For years I had passed by the spot where the cars are parked along the side of route six. For years people had said to me “Go out to that place where the cars are and follow the path.” Then one day I went. It was a regular path into the woods, but then I hit a steep incline of sand, a pile of shoes at the bottom. I added mine and went up, feet sinking into the soft shifting ground as if walking on a hill of flour, a hill so steep that there was only sky at its horizon. Step forward, sink in, step forward, sink in, it was slow progress.
At the top I stopped, astonished. Behind me was woods, a road, a town, a harbor. In front, to the left and to the right, were miles of sand dunes. I was on the moon, a shift in planets, a vast expanse of dunes, some up to one hundred feet tall. The dark blue strip of the Atlantic, visible two and a half miles away, glittered like laughter in the sun.
A deep breath, so much air, so much space, I had the urge to go, run, over the sand to the sea, over the white hills along coyote and fox prints zigging and zagging endlessly, over the span where the wind whistles and roars all winter long. I avoided being thoughtful, my thoughts can talk me out of anything. I was only mindful (coyotes). I moved forward and my world got quieter, no sound of cars, rustle of leaves, or voices. The promise of the ocean pulled. Flat places of scrubby pine and oak trees and pools of water dotted around a few small houses, “dune shacks,” positioned with an attitude of isolation. I walked on, seeing no one, running up the final climb at the edge of the land. Thirty feet below the shore stretched left and right as far as the eye could see, straight ahead the uninterrupted, mysterious world of water. Sound returned, the pound and hush of waves. The thrill of reaching a destination had me pause, look for whales, seals, shark fins. On turning around, I marveled at my exploration, the desert in my back yard, with no path back, navigable only by the view of the water tower and the Monument. I was a changed person for the journey. I had a new perspective of my landscape, a truer view.
Outside the front door, or around the world, there is always infinitely more to find. Every time I travel or explore my mind gets changed, my life enriched. It is just over the horizon, around the bend, at the foot of the hill, up into the sky where the stars dome in a never-ending expanse that says, “Go, you are free.”
Go to your dreams. Go to your endless possibilities. Go and explore and gain a new view.
“Go,” The painting is by Christine Niles