RE-MARK-ABLE
Tuesday Oct. 28, 2014
Who we are.
Or are not.
Who we want to be, who we will be.
These – are they focus of our magnifying glass, channeling mid-day sun into a burning force?
What about who we are not?
Better, how about what (and who) we are not any longer?
Sure, it is easy to say, “I’m an ex-coward.”
But what are we, who are we, relative to who we once were?
Someone asked me recently what it was I was like when I was young, first married – and what I yearned for then – and all I could answer was, “mostly, the wrong things”.
I needed to need things.
I wanted to want things. As if those merit-badge possessions, once owned by me might define me. Never to the point where they owned me. Pursuit of them, was too strong a driving force for far too long. Maybe it was the times.
You know, that ‘back in the day’ attitude.
I’m not so sure that is something we simply go through – or if I was somehow unique in not seeing it so clearly for so long.
So what was happening then?
I yearned to have a yearning for …
Perhaps I am still a dreamer. Not an ex-dreamer.
I am, I think, an ex-fool.
I am an ex-alcoholic. Ex-nasty person. Ex-brute. Ex-idiot. Ex-risk taker.
Hold it, just a minute. I am still a risk taker.
But a risk taker of a different kind, a different varietal.
Rather than being re-mark-ed I’ve been re-made – like recapped tires, same old structure with new treads and some dark goo on my sidewalls to look smooth…
Not remarked.
Remade.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -6C/21F, frosty windshields under moonless star-studded sky. Gusta had two walks … one at 4:30AM and another (she hardly ever begs!) for another pee-opportunity at 7:30AM . The grass is frosty too, very cool looking in early light …
