An end is crawling near. You can feel it on the dying winds of dusk and in the frailty of the sun's winter rays. The year has come and essentially gone, and here I sit, yet again, with no progress made towards a future. Supposed blips in the road, the positive things we're all 'encouraged' to see, have occured, but the overall stanza of 2004 has provided no solid footing from which to build on. Maybe I can see why Cory did what he did. Maybe, in the end, it's all what we have to do. The future (and barely the present) isn't here in a god-forsaken part of a great nation. This is not where life blossoms and matures, but a place in which it fades, withers, and dies. I had goals. I set them for once, as it isn't something normally done. But they have not been attained nor will they be anytime in the foreseeable. Sometimes, when you look around yourself, what is seen isn't what should be there...and worried am I that this misfortune has befallen me.
Now that some of the somberness of the day has been let out and freely expressed to whichever soul wishes to reminisce on the mind of me, I shall post a top 6. A (gasp) goal setting top 6...of the places I would most like to visit. One with purpose and direction and a desire rarely shown by myself about anything. These are places that have cozied themselves into a corner of my imagination and memory. The readings and dwellings and dreams of a life just a bit more spectacular. These are the places that can make this current life morph into something memorable in and of itself.
6) Irian Jaya. A lone island seemingly swallowed by the handshake of the two great eastern oceans. Dwarfed by neighbors and forgotten by time, it is a place of solemnity, danger, beauty, and a pristine-ness not known to those in the West. Part of the greater Indonesian conglomerate of islands, it shares a border with Papua New Guinea, with which some of you may be familiar. There is no greater place to see tree kangaroo's and eastern Gretchens (a large ill-flighted bird). The peace and serenity and immenseness of the Irian Jaya have inspired many of my forward-thinking daydreaming events.
5) Mongolia. For some reason, and please do not expect any clarification, the Mongol empire and the great Asian Steppe have always fascinating this tricky mind of mine. How it came to be that a single nomadic people dominated an entire continent for nearly 3 centuries is quite humbling. Merely yaks, horses, yurts, and a fortitude shaming any modern man's led to the sweeping of the largest continent with ease not before seen. If not for the Sultanates and the Frankish empires of eastern Europe and their independent thwarting (on two fronts) of the Mongol scourge, our civilization would have been transformed. And, perhaps, the tolerance the Mongols showed towards every religion and cultural nuances would've been shared even into today's time. Mongolia might not be the most breathtaking site on Earth, but the history there...you can feel it.
4) Greece. Where else can time be reviewed in a living pictorial. One that can be felt and touched and breathed. The home to the infancy of democracy and the larval stages of learning and discovery is found here, wedged between the Ionian, Mirtoan, and mighty Aegean seas. From the language to the Faith to the foods there are few places with more depth and cultural layering than the Greece of today. Perhaps, someday, the columns of the Parthenon will crumble into history, but here's to hoping for an eternity of the living past on a small peninsula in the middle of the world.
3) The Serengeti Plain. Lions and elephants and hyenas, oh my! So it doesn't quite have the same meter as the other, but still, it is impressive. The single greatest area of mega-fauna diversity in the old world, with more large carnivores, massive herbivores, and squawking baboons than any other on earth. The rumbling shake of herds of elephant grazing between acacias on the parched ground. The eye-splitting sprint of a female cheetah running down an infant gazelle on the open grassy vistas. The bright eye shine of mischievous hyenas as the circle in on a day old kill. There are sunsets so brilliant the colors cannot be captured on film and rains so penetrating that 7 year slumbers are awakened. Someday it'll find me, or I'll find it...and it will be perfect.
2) Tuscany. The wafting scent of freshly crushed olives. The beauty of a creeping Mediterranean vine climbing old stucco. The percussion of laughter from a family gathering in the villa across the way. The Old World still holds its charm and beauty in some pockets. Places where the war-torn past and socialist present are merely pockmarks in carpenters wood. Perhaps here, in the birthplace of western culture, where the tidings of old Rome and the minglings of a bright future still bathe themselves under a sun so fantastic the warmth will never leave you. I've heard that Tuscan proschutto is to die for, and I know that Tuscan pasta, as opposed to its Semolina cousin we here know so well, delivers a more rotund flavor. Perhaps soon I will find myself feasting on a Tuscan feast with a bright, white moon glimmering down from above, and the cries of laughter from the piazza filling my soul up.
1) The Highlands of Scotland. Although no official historical connection has been found, something draws me towards the northern bits of Scotland like a young child towards a flame. No ancestry from the Scotch-Gaelic lands, but only a yearning for something mystical and filling. I felt it in Ireland walking the roads of the region Connemara. I felt it in the the quiets of Cades Cove...where the centuries of Native Cherokee ghosts still banter and whoop. I'll feel it again upon the Highlands with a light mist falling from the west. Few, if any, places inspire and force one to recall their lives in a deeper, more complete fashion than the mossy, rugged peaks of northern Scotland. I will look forward with earnest to the setting Scottish sun falling upon me as I sit and feel the Highland winds carry my thoughts to wist they had begun.
In Other News...
a) I am not sleeping well. I think it might have to do with the fact that I am quite fat.
b) Shootemup Killemall is a very addictive game.
c) Hendry, where are you?
d) I really can't wait for spring. Freaking frigid winter.
Connemara's Rising is solely a division of David Brunner's Intellectual gifts.
© 2004 David Brunner
