(as seen in my livejournal on 3-24-03)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| .*. Niagra Falls .*. (as seen in my livejournal on 3-24-03) |
|||||||||||
| We walked down into the park. Everything lit by soft white light posts. All the Mecca�s of commercialism around us silenced for the night. There was no one else around. We walked down paths and between buildings that will be loud and crowded with tourists, their wallets outstretched in the sunshine by day very soon. But, there were no sounds except our footsteps and, the near-distant sound of the falls. Naked flowerbeds that will explode into colour in a month or two stood like barren sentinels along the brick stoned paths. Empty benches like wallflowers sat waiting for honeymooners and families of four with screaming, sticky children to dump ice cream on them while they fumble with their camcorders in a sea of souvenirs. You could almost see the ghosts of these people who have come and gone and, who will come again. CPA's who abandon their business suits and, don t-shirts with corporal slogans trying to connect with their sullen teenage children dressed in black, headphones turned up so loudly to drown out the noise from these virtual strangers who are their parent's, fighting against the one week a year that they actually have a "family". It's vacation time again. But, after twilight, in the not still winter not quite spring season, all of these wailing memories are silenced. We picked our way through the shadowed park, looking for the view. The red neon casino skyline vying with the starlit sky. And, all at once it's there. The rushing water of the top of the falls. Inky black, only the caps of the waves stark against oblivion. The water moves so fast, you're standing next to overpowering consumption separated by a metal railing and 3 feet of crumbling, muddy ground. It's heady and, terrifying. You walk along the rail, your vertigo beginning to kick in, as you look with horror-love at this all-consuming force that is nothing man-made. We reach the falls themselves. No mother's screaming for their children not to get too close. No father's scrambling for cameras to capture the evidence that they were involved in their families� lives. The viewfinders empty, glancing out over their eternal, wonderful scape, bored and, lonely. And, starlight. And, silence. Snow covered rock formations rise from the mist at the bottom of the falls like Frost Giants at Ragnarok. You're standing at the end of the world. You can taste your heartbeat. You're so alone, so small, so humble. Because you are only a human. One small human standing before a force great enough to destroy countless many of you, Japanese stock brokers and, gambling men with beer bellies. You watch this natural wonder with awe and, enlightenment. Because you realize that you know nothing. Nothing. You are powerless. Here before you is something that is ageless, here is eternal wisdom. And, you look at a boy. And, you realize that there is something that you know. And, he takes your hand. And together you look down, down, down at the miniature ice burgs floating their way under a bridge. You are the only people in the world, in the universe, at this moment. The warmth of his hand the only anchor you have. You want to cry, you want to scream, you want to jump. To give yourself over to this force. To merge with it, to acknowledge how infinitely greater than you it is. And, perhaps you would, you can feel it inside you, you're being driven, enchanted. But, the physical evidence of the one thing you do know is traveling in a closed circuit and, pooling in your fingertips. And, when you walk away you have merged, you have gained. When you make your way to reality again, the falls crashing behind you now, you know that all the infinite everything has just touched your soul. Has left some spark of something changed inside you. While the demons of capitalism sleep, you have found the true meaning of the word "wonder". And, tomorrow they will pull up in their Volvos and try to capture on film what the world has told them to see. You take home no souvenirs, no pictures, no proof. But, for a shining moment you truly saw. And, you are so in love. | |||||||||||
|
|||||||||||