Ghost Orchids, Part II

January 18, 2005 - Tuesday

the Ghost Orchid (II)

So: when did I stop chasing windmills?

Forget the movie, the movie is just a metaphor right now. The original point of my post was that the ideas and thoughts presented in the movie were mirroring my own, about various aspects of my own life. So in that respect, I suppose, the message hasn't been lost.

But again I have to ask myself, when did I stop chasing windmills?

I loved being the man of La Mancha, and I was in so many respects. At my core, I believed - strongly - in passion. Not love, but passion - listening to my heart and letting it lead me, often blindly, never regretably. I chased rainbows, I fought dragons and giants and leviathans of the deep; I loved, I lost, I spoke true and stayed true to myself.

So where did that person go? It's still there, inside me, but I let society's whims and needs and requirements exorcise my demons. I became respectable - or tried to be, anyway.

And that's not who I am.

"...the only barometer you have is your heart; how, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way."

It's funny, but I had a very similar thought earlier. That's the part of me I lost somewhere along the way, and I'm determined to find that person again.

"If the ghost orchid was really a phantom, it was still such a bewitching one that it could seduce people to persue it year after year, mile after miserable mile. If it was a real flower I wanted to see one. The reason was not that I loved orchids, I don't especially like orchids; what I wanted to see this thing that people were drawn to in such a singular and powerful way."

And there's it, right there. There was a time I knew what that thing was, without ever putting a name to it. Then I lost that innate knowledge; I turned to logic, to trying to understand what this thing was. I think I wanted to control it, to make it something I could manipulate and turn on, or off, as I pleased.

Understand: the movie hasn't given me any epiphany. It was a movie, for fuck's sake. What has me in this self-analytical bent is the combination of small events that inexplicably tie in, that seem to be telling me something pretty damned loud - if I would only take the time from my oh-so-busy day and listen.

I think...there was a moment in time when I faced down the windmill, and lost. Badly. It left its mark on me; it left, I think, fear. A sense of mortality. I didn't fear the windmill, the dragon, because it was a Dream. It was my ghost orchid - only, when I found it, it had thorns and pricked me.

So I gave up orchids. Fuck orchids.

But I think that mentality is wrong, at least it is for me.

There was a time when I did cave in to fear. Two moments, actually. Instead of climbing the windmill I passed it by, gave it a wide berth and ignored it. I had good reasons for doing it, and given the same circumstances I might - might - do it again.

Only...now one of those windmills has come back into view, and the circumstances have changed. Life is giving me a rarity - a second chance to make a choice, for better or worse. To take a chance, to risk it all.

To regain that passion that used to define me.

Of course, if I'm wrong, that windmill is going to toss me up several miles into the air and watch me come crashing back down to earth in an incredibly decorative splatter. Mind the kiddies folks, and wear your galoshes.

Still. I miss that constant thump-thump-thump that told me, every day of my life, how alive I was.

And what's a little blood and guts compared to that?

Enough rambling for tonight.