The secrets that we keep...lowered as if into the deepest well...float and bob in the darkness below the earth...Secrets, dark and deep, hold me, guard me, while I sleep. Love is hidden behind all the lies ever told and there is no point in asking why. Why is a question with too many answers, all of them a matter of perspective. All of them right; all of them wrong; all of them just there...Simplicity is the other side of complexity therefore they are really one and the same...flip them over and take another look. Acceptance is that which we can do nothing about...out of our control...we choose to be with what disappoints us. Feel the disappointment rimmed with a thick layer of sadness knowing this will pass. To stay still in this moment, to embrace the hurt, to take a closer look...reflections reveal the emptiness inside of broken dreams. Shattered, they lay at my feet, decrepit and spoilt. I step over them and wonder at the form and substance of something I thought so real. Shaking my head in perplexity, I slowly move forward feeling my body stretch and strain for the next level...what is over the next hill, I wonder? Only one way to find out. In no hurry, I glance behind me to see the retreating visions of those dreams once too real and vibrant to discount. Now, I can hardly make them out. Then I remember. Yes...always forward. We cannot go back. And though I can glance from one side to the next, pause for a deeper breath, my path leads me on into the next step...the next...and living is in the journey not the destination. I remember a woman so long ago, her name was Anne, who told this to me...so profound and out of my ken at that time. I see her smooth gray hair so neatly combed back. Her journey had lead her to reach out to those in emotional pain for she had been there herself. Long since gone now, she may be dead, still, I always think of her as I drive by what was once her house. It is yellow and too close to the road but I remember the warm interior and the charming ancient glow of well polished wood. I am thankful for the brief time that I spent with her; thankful for the understanding that life was not some end of the track station that would mean my life had begun. This journey...my life...ever changing, filled with wonder and sorrow and pain and laughter and tears and music and words and children and books and time and friends...always learning...always growing... Sometimes the pain gives me a longer pause than I would like and makes me feel as if I'm losing ground. Then I wonder how I will catch up with the others? Alone. I breathe and wait and listen to the quiet in my head. I listen to the whispers from the regions less explored inside my inner world. I hear laughter so often masked by the noise of the outer world. I smile knowing that my eyes twinkle with mirth; my own joke, and I am happy, content. This is a secret that I am eager to share...but I can wait...I can wait until the time is right and I come upon another person such as myself...someone else in pause, reflecting on their inner universe and perhaps we will continue to walk on together. Then...I will share my secrets and open my innerverse with my cocompanion traveler on this journey that is our life.