ready or not

I was telling Massachusetts Bob, on our way back off the Sunset Cliffs Saturday, that I’ve been having little jolts of distinct familiarity, an “Oh, I’ve been on this path before”, the sense growing day by day I’ve forever been on this path. The one which took me to the Sunset Cliffs Saturday, to this keyboard this morning.

So, replacing a judgement about always being late to the party – like not discovering The Pixies until I was 73 years old – there’s a different feeling. Less judging myself. In the place of judgement an understanding that all my life I’ve been in a game of hide-and-seek, partnering with this big, right-in-front-of-me, wide-open existence. Me always “It”, counting to 10 behind a fat tree, the “Here I come” rushing me out here, there, and everywhere, willy-nilly into the world. Translating everything. Forgetting it’s a game. And, lately, beginning to understand the “Ready or not” was never directed at the ‘Hider’. Nah, just a forever trick on the seeker.

And, back to the beginning, the flashes of memory, something outside deja vu, that there’s always been the game. With one rule – simply walk down the sidewalk with eyes open, not needing the day to be some other way. And here, at 73, I’m still ‘It’, now maybe beginning to see whatever hasn’t been hiding all along — that, over there in the tall grass, to the left of the old hinged-gate, where three robins are playing.