ANCHORHOLD
There is a place where I sit. Where I forever sit. Well… Forever… As long as I remain that is. It is my forever place. My stoop upon the world. The place where my simple self exists in spite of the world. For, from this simple place the world around me does rage; like a sea around a small stack of rocks above the waves. And there I am seated upon the rocks, while cold water churns about me as in a tide, and water—dark water—rises slowly to my feet, swirling still like a wet coil of mindless energy pursuing the purpose not even entropy knows, and swifting past my drawn legs and feet, a churning ambition of splash and wet, and cold and empty.
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And while I sit upon the rocks, and hold my knees between my arms, I watch the cold and darkness swirling all around; and I entertain unsummoned thoughts and conjecture – ideas brought forth in my mature worry and want of doing right and having peace and being good. And my heart races. And my mind burns. And pain comes from somewhere to settle behind my throat – such a strange place to hurt – and behind my ears and the cavity which every inhalation of breath makes below my heart, but there too as well. And I feel pain in my fingers, around my knuckle joints and in my feet, upon the soles worn hard of movement, want, and ambition. The pain of this world is all about within me now. Now, while the blackened, coldest waters of life mystery rise still and threaten more. I cannot escape. There are no higher rocks upon which I might climb. This is as far as my mortality will allow. At least when I am sober, and sane, and trying. My Anchorhold is the rock upon which I sit just above a swirling depthless sea. It is the place of my own life perspective and the vista I must see from first awareness to last. It is my only real home upon the sea, upon the earth, with my life. My Anchorhold is the place where I must apprehend, and I must live, and strive, and struggle, and suffer, and…with strong effort and gritted will, the place where I might get by, and maybe even thrive.
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Infrastructure
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There is an inward architecture which we create through the fact and consequence of our decisions and actions, which become the scaffolding structure of the inner man or woman who others may dimly see when they look us square in the eyes; perceiving a light or darkness within which shines or empties in proportion to the effort we have made to not just live, but to live well, and in accord with our perceived nature and better inclination. We fail utterly when we build our inner world solely guided by the prescribed blueprint precedence of others, which guidance may suffice to create grand and stately outward living, but may leave us inwardly hollow and empty in the end, when we are alone within our outer world, and we look at what we have, and do possess, and have made; and we wonder what we may have seemingly missed—and if somehow there may be more? Why are we so outwardly filled yet so inwardly empty? Our home then, a stable and impressive castle of outward success and seemingly worthwhile achievement and acclaim, resting upon an inner foundation of shifting sand.
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Better a cave,
Warmed of fire
And illuminated of firelight
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Such a life to live
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How much more decorous a possession than honest self-reflection; though there is nothing to see in such wealth besides the owner's periodic bemused look of dismay at uncovering again their own thin veneer of understanding. But such a thing to wear! Such a man or woman is lord or lady of a single rock protruding through the sea, with slippery wet sides promising, with the slightest misstep, a swift plunge into cold depths. There is nowhere even to sit at such a place...for the honest must always stand with straining muscles and the fatigue of one who wants to try, and who refuses to tell comforting stories of make-believe and relenting hope. The winds there are always cold, coming in off the sea, and there's little comfort besides holding our arms wrapped tight to our chest. And it's always evening here at the edge of certitude, with no light on those distant lands and a gauzy haze upon an unbroken horizon of empty. Such a place to come to, such a place to stay, and such a life to live.
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