Driftwood is a perfect metaphor for a life being well-lived. Take time, lots of time, and grow. Go deep and, with the seasons, allow the inevitable change to take hold. When you are still young and green, you can tower over those around you, grab hold of the infinite sunshine, and absorb as much as you can. Your energy is boundless, your thirst rapacious. Then, at your most confident, another tree eclipses you and is crowding you out. Its leaves are greener and somehow fresher. You never even noticed that it was standing taller than you while you were busy admiring yourself. Then a wind storm comes along, and the roots that kept you grounded have grown weak, and you topple, but you are not gone. There is still a path for your continued contribution. One is that you will be a fertile place for other life to take hold as you nourish their existence and offer shelter to help them along on their journey. The other path will take you from the place you called home and deliver you on an adventure across waterways and seas where, although you turn gray with age, you become an exquisite object of beauty. I am becoming driftwood.

Channels of light, blankets of shade, paths of wind, and bodies of water: this landscape is a mutable canvas. How do we adopt this natural art as mental persuasion which alters our mindscape by shifting the elements and allowing us to glow in a similar beauty such as that which we find in our travels and discoveries? It’s easy to fall in love with the surface of things; it takes time and hard work to understand the deeper intricacies of just what it is that creates such magnificence.

Is the path always straight ahead? Is it mostly clear? Once you reach the other side, is the depth beyond your ability to make instant sense of the situation, or might you already be floating on that which you brought with you in order to be prepared for taking on new challenges? Finding new things in previously unseen places is one of the human rewards where our imagination allows us to discover a wealth of experience that feeds our dreams. On the other hand, it is also quite likely that we never put ourselves in a situation where we must look into the unknown down a path we’d prefer we’d never seen.

Moments of reflection are transitional and dependent on perfect circumstances. Dry sand and turbulent water are not conducive to mirroring anything, though both are fun and allow us an amount of carefree play within and upon them. When the water surface is calm or a thin sheen of water washes over the beach, we are presented with a clarity of the reverse image of what is being reflected. For those moments, we see the same world differently. In our minds, we must find the calm waters of existence with an added sheen of knowledge washing over our senses to find ourselves reflected differently than the same old picture that makes up the majority of the time we are present.

Rays of golden light and horizons of days to come as experience washes in with the tide. We are present and aware of our changing world in subtle ways unique to each of our perspectives. Just 30 feet below or 100 feet south, the view of reality is vastly different compared to those who might observe the scene from yet another vantage point.

Maelstrom and light, calm and darkness, fluid and solid, life and death. These all exist simultaneously in the narrowest slice and in the broadest sense of all that is before me, and yet within, we are encouraged to harness the calm, tame the darkness, and embrace life. Yet we are complex composites of the elements that have created our world, not a tiny subset to be ordered and made tidy. My inner turmoil is as chaotic as the crashing waves; the light used to find my way dims and becomes familiar with being shrouded in bad weather. I am fluid and try to be solid; my life is grand, and death is inevitable. The interplay and dancing of my constituent parts are my landscape, with roots that ebb and flow and yet allow me to take unforeseen paths. After my arrival, I gained perspective where knowledge can be reflected upon others I might encounter on this adventure.