collecting waypoints

the Walks, as I originally labelled them, were never about getting from a to b. they were about *collecting* the a's and the b's, the c's and the d's, the e's and the f's - as little or as much of the whole alphabet as seemed fitting - dropping them into mason jars on the front porch in the rain, and waiting to see what would happen.

not much, at first, but just before the rain stopped, all that changed. every. single. time.

the lids would unscrew themselves, and letters would feel tentatively into the air before canvassing themselves between the porch and the tree line, waiting to be read.

and the reads were always astonishing; fecund images starting behind the eyes and reaching out to somewhere above the aspens and pines and cedars

people, places, intersections (always intersections), emotions and sensations wrestling amongst themselves until their energy was spent, leaving just a hint of original face for me to contemplate

I wondered, as my day's months and years matured, how much the waypoints had given me, and how much they had taken away. In the world of opposites, of course, there was never give without take, and this explained the slow weariness that crept in over time. Letter by letter I would be gifted anew, letter by letter I would be relieved of a part of myself

until, finally, the alphabet's alphabet ran dry. there was just me, a literal ghost of myself, looking at 17,000 empty mason jars on the porch, washed clean in the moonlight. somewhere out there in a permanent pre-dawn, the ciphers Homed themselves and considered their next purchase.