the highway through the hills and valleys

Life, this journey, it never stops. Even if I were to plunk down and refuse to budge, the landscape around me would. When I think about resisting change, I always think of Dr. Seuss and his north- and south-going zaxs.

South-Going Zax said:
I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!

Of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew.
In a couple of years, the new highway came through
And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax
And left them there, standing un-budge in their tracks.

So often, I'm a zax. I get so wrapped up in my goal, so focused on the path that I've decided to take, that I just stop at the first roadblock. The roadblock is usually tiny, insignificant, but all I see is that it has broken my path. I allow a little stone in my path halt my way. I stop and the world keeps going around me. I'm lucky, and often someone coming along accidentally bumps into me, pushing me over or around the stone. But it's too late. The path has already changed.

Perhaps this is one of those ramblings where I should end with, "it's not the destination that matters, it's about the journey." But all I still see is the destination. The path is still a means to get me to that goal. But what is my goal? Don't I really just want to get there so that I can stop? So that I don't have to travel on these paths anymore. So that I can sit and be? I feel like if I just get there I can stop and the world will stop with me, and I and it can just be.

One of my former co-workers, Danny Goldenbaum finished his CD, "Hills & Valleys." So I'll end things off with excerpts from the title track:

The other day you caught me thinking and you asked me what was wrong.
I said that life must keep on moving, and it's time I moved along.
...
So then I linger on, across the meadows. I climb the hills of time.
And when the day has come and thing get better, you'll be by my side.
The other day I saw you sitting. It looked like something was on your mind.
Could it be that you were thinking about the loneliness inside?
...
You can't deny that I have waited for a better life, a better friend to make it clear what I got.
Life was hard, but I refuse to let them run me down,
if I climb the hill, a valley always comes around,
if I listen to the words of a wiser one,
just maybe I'll, just maybe I'll be—just maybe I'll—be.