My Sunday Morning Walk began at seven in the morning. I stepped out and in an instant I was struck. Suddenly everything looked familiar, in the most distant, age-old way. A year ago, I visited this place with creeping enthusiasm, despite a firm plan for New York. The trees, the streets, the dry and dusty air. All finally the same, with only that faint hint of a vibrant spring approaching. Just like a year ago, almost to the day.
Back then, when I finally decided, I wrote about the life I’d take on here, and naively crafted that future elsewhere in my evolving American narrative. Always hoping my story could quietly be more epic than any life can be. I tried my best to act as if I knew about the experiences I’d soon encounter. Called it an adventure, and stared all the many failures, such certain futures, in the face.
In the comings months, I’d write about more adventures. I was always sure to understand my relationship with failure. Flirting with risk, I knew failure was a weed that would sprout endlessly, no matter my success. I waved my adventurous wand over both love and paint. I chased a girl across six states and got her, and I tried to paint the whole of art history in a semester’s time. With faith I leaped, out over a darkened void.
As promised by my own suspicion, the asphalt was hard and black. My widespread and adventurously unfocused efforts landed me on academic probation, a status I had to gnash and crawl from, eventually succeeding with anger, paint, and lip. And the love? A bitter failure also. Two of me fell at once, and in keeping with the rules of adventure, two of me got back up. Becoming one maybe, once and for all. Or maybe breaking into a dozen more. No single me the Original.
These thoughts took but thirty seconds. I still stood on my building’s front step. I was tired, my walk was through. Turning inside I asked myself what I’ve learned. To me, life is naturally quite like history. We can’t name its movements nor its lessons until years after their momentous events have passed. I know I was younger then, dumber then. But I’m still a fool for adventure. I work harder than ever, and I am no longer that charming social being. But I am only sailing the South Seas. Years from now, wisdom will hit me in an instant. And old is all I’ll be. Until then, I’ll stay young, stay dumb, refusing to admit that I’m nothing more than an actor. Like a youthful sailor, eyes fixed on that daunting horizon, those many futures. A perfect distant circle, the past no different from the fates that lie ahead. He’s seen it all, and he hasn’t learned a thing.