Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Problem with being a Rock, Part II

The problem with being a rock is that you are a rock. Rocks can be beautiful, grainy and marbled, brightly colored when wet, but that beauty is too external. Even if you crack a rock in half, or polish it flat, you're not really seeing the inside. Many of us live under the assumption that rocks are inanimate; that they don't grow and live. But I have become a large rock, a boulder perhaps, and the weight of it is killing me. In an effort to educate my three readers, I would like to elucidate my life as a rock for you.

First off, as a rock, especially a boulderish one, it is difficult for anyone to get their arms around you, let alone wrap their heads around you. After all, rocks are rock solid. Nothing goes in, and nothing comes out, at least not that others can see. During my recent life as a rock, there have been many things that I have held internally that cannot find voice; cannot be released or revealed. This, of course, is why rocks grow; they feed on their own insides; eat their own sins. And as I mentioned in Part I, since nothing but your rock-ness ever shows, you simply become part of the landscape; an innocuous part of people's purview. It is hard being a rock, a very difficult existence. Rocks, after all, are associated with pain. A rock hits you in the head, it hurts; smash your shin on a rock, it hurts. And no one ever gives the rock credit for feeling the pain, even as it festers inside. Rocks don't get black-and-blue. They just are.

Secondly, people don't give rocks credit for having brains. While it is true that the brain to body ratio of a rock lessens as it boulderizes, it actually spends most of its time thinking, sometimes brooding, sometimes dreaming, but its brain is never inactive, and oftentimes, it feels and emotes intensely. Yes, it is hard to observe, but there is a natural resonance to all things, and for those willing to sit on a rock, or lean on it, or even hit it with a hammer, there is a vibratory revelation...a palpable response to other living things. Sensitive people can feel it, even through the hard exterior.

The hardest part of being a rock, after it has become a boulder, is that it barely can move. The bigger the boulder, the more likely it is to stay in place. The only movement it feels is the movement of depressing further into place. The bigger the boulder, the bigger the depression. Pebbles, on the other hand, move with the moles and the earthworms, and get to feel the warmth of the sun, or the joy of skipping in still water. River rocks roll in the currents, free like teenagers. Larger rocks get woven into communities, footpaths and garden walls, and the more petulant, dislodge unrestrained, and call to be held again. Yes, dear readers, rocks evolve.

This boulder longs to be molten again, return to the beginnings, to surge fiery and hot, part of the floe that seeps into the creative crevices of the living. I have been warmed, even heated hot recently, but the boulder's reluctance to change has cooled the flame. I need the heat to return, to set me free, but I fear the heat is rising away from me toward a brighter day.


3 comments:

Gail said...

Excellent

<3 gae

larry.schwartz828@gmail.com said...

For anyone reading this who sees this as anything but a desire to move forward, a need to fix MY past mistakes, and a longing to restore myself, PLEASE put those thoughts away. I have hurt myself, by looking past all that is good, and letting myself focus on self pity. This is about self restoration. And I truly believe I have begun that process.

Anonymous said...

The problem with a boulder... Is that it either doesn't move at all... or it destroys things in its path when it does!