There's a path we take forward, light-footed with empty backpacks that put no weight on our shoulders. And it is a path as long and infinite as it is unseeable, unknowable for more than just the immediate trail ahead.
And at nightfall, we find a perfect forked branch to pitch our tent. And at daybreak, I load it heavy into my backpack. "You sure you want to take that? It's heavy." "I know. But it's such a good tent-pitching stick." "There will be other sticks." "But maybe none as good as this one."
We move onward, and there is a heaviness pulling at my shoulders that presses my feet deeper into the clay, heavier footprints, smaller strides, a burden manifesting in an eagerness to sit and stay put that no one else feels.
And at nightfall we settle down, me with my nice stick and my nice pitched tent. And we find a stone so round and flat and perfect to cook on. Fire beneath, food on top.
At daybreak, I pack the stone.
"It'll be heavy." "I know." I bring the stone with me. Because perhaps we will never find better. Because I am too afraid to leave it behind, now that it means something to me.
I walk with the branch. I walk with the stone. I walk far behind with heavy heavy feet.
At night I have my perfect branch, and my perfect stone, and I pitch a perfect tent and cook a perfect meal on the beautiful canyon overlook we found to settle for the night. I watch the sunset, and I am convinced there can be nowhere more beautiful than this.
When the sun rises, I am preoccupied with how to fit this overlook into my bag.
"It's too big. It's too heavy." "I know." My heart aches for it. This view, this place, this overlook has meaning to me. Like the stone, like the branch, I can't picture anything better. I am cold with fear at leaving it behind. My sentimentality is snared around it, and like too many roots set down, it would be too painful tear all of myself out of it.
I wait. I wait. Until I can find some way to fit it in my bag. Until I have some way to take it with me, and leave nothing behind.
And something is different. When I look back to the path, there is no one now. They've woken up and packed up their feather-light bags and moved on, down the infinite path of so many infinite things to see.
And I, like the branch, like the stone, like the overlook, am among all the many things left behind.
