A few days ago I tried a recommended daily exercise for would-be writers. Write 1000 words a day. This is the unedited exercise. Title added later.
Stream of Consciousness
When we walked down the well-worn path from the edge of town headed for deep in the woods, we had no idea. How many times had we done it before? Not always the same kids, but always the same plan. Head for the river where the world changed as fast as the water flowed. There was just something about knowing that we’d never seen that water before. Nobody had.
Interesting. If all of “our gang” had made the trek at one time, there might have been eleven curious kids. Looking for adventure? Maybe… but more likely having no idea what the search was for. As a matter of fact, on a typical day there would be five interchangeable members of this non-exclusive group. How does this kind of unregulated rotation of tweens on the edge of responsibility maintain any sense of continuity? The subject never came up as we found our way through the thickets to the gently running stream.
Maybe naming names would be a good idea. Keep in mind, from time to time a newcomer appears, while someone’s family may take them away to a new town or a new state. It happens, almost without notice. Makes you wonder. I remember when Bobbie first set foot on the trail. His family had moved to town from out of state, I don’t remember which one. Did I spell his name correctly? I never thought of that before. I’ll tell you more about Bob later. About the time he joined the amblers, Jeanette headed south with her family, never to communicate again; at least not with any of us. But then, how would I know? We didn’t call roll or read the minutes. It’s possible that she wrote to John. She used to chat with him when both walked the walk with us. It occurs to me that I’d have no way to know. I’m not there every day.
At my now “advanced” age, it occurs to me that all my life has been like that constantly changing unorganized group of evermoving travelers, searching for something, often ill-defined. It does occur to me from time to time that there are those I envy, who establish roots and reap the benefit of comfort and security that comes from familiarity with others like them. What is it that makes stability possible? Why do some constantly move on seeking new paths, new streams, new places, new ideas for life? These are questions I’m certainly not prepared to answer. Are You?
Even though I was never the leader of the pack or the secretary with notes of our “meetings”, I feel I should continue to identify this disorganized, or at least unorganized young gang. Maybe I should say group. The word gang has fallen into disrepute. There were Freddie, Herb, Harvey and Marie. Hmmm. They seemed to hit the trail at approximately the same time, shortly after I arrived; but I hadn’t really known them before. Even though they seemed to appear around the same time, there was no clique, no separation from the amorphous group already there. About the same time, of course, a few found their way to other pastimes. I suppose it was natural that high school would nudge some to the responsibility of study in preparation for graduation. Others simply found other avocations or friends with whom they shared common interests. As for me, I guess I liked being one who didn’t want to miss the walk. Especially interesting, in that later I tended to be one who was hard to keep in one place.
There must have been a time when no such bunch of searchers existed, at least not in the same way. Not every community has a nearby canopy of leaf-filled limbs to shelter tender teens as they begin their search for an unknown future. And I suppose there will be a time when the last of these rotating pathfinders will have chosen other ways to satisfy their desire (need?) for membership.
Like the lack of real member-ship, I seem to forget that there were no leaves from late fall to mid spring. Where did we all go? When did we find our way back? Why did it suddenly become a question as I attempt to recall those days? There are certainly more questions than answers. I guess there always were.
Oh, remember Angeline? No, you probably wouldn’t, but she was worth remembering. No one called her Angie. She wouldn’t have cared, but it just wouldn’t have seemed right. Like all the others, she hit the trail when convenient, but somehow it was a better walk when Angeline walked with us. What is it about some people that changes everything? She didn’t say clever or brilliant things. She was no prettier than some of the other girls. She didn’t dress better or walk faster. She just made our transient world seem OK for a little while. Come to think of it, every once in a while, in my long life, an Angeline has appeared, to bring calm to a tense situation. Sometime the “Angeline” is a Benjamin, but the effect is the same. There is a certain shareable equanimity provided by a few in the world who fortunately help to populate our universe.
You realize that in my few years of “hitting the trail”, there was no way to really “know” all the kids. Surely they couldn’t have known each other. Years passed. The cast was constantly changing. And I think we each learned a little something about life that may have helped us later along the way. Though we didn’t know each other well, we shared the common experience of taking that walk along a path of sometimes soft soil, sometimes crunching brown leaves on the way to that stream. That was probably where we learned the most. Nobody said much about it, but I think we all, in our own time, saw the stream as a way to see our lives. Yes, the water came from some unknown place, on its way to an equally mysterious future. Where will it go? Where will we go?
Walter Weaver