Manifesto

I hope a few years time finds me rambling down an Australian highway on a motorcycle I could barely afford, speeding to a destination upon which I have not yet decided. I hope I am neither running from nor toward anything. I hope I have a few finished novels. A few finished albums. A few finished tattoos. A few finished scars. I hope the sky is a sharp, unforgiving blue and the sun an obstinate tangerine, brooding directly above my head. And I hope I don’t mind. I hope I am wearing a helmet, jeans, boots and nothing else. I hope I only have one continent left. Or zero. I hope that everyone I have ever met knows that I begin and end each and every day sending them all the positive conscious thought I can possibly muster. I hope by then I think that all the positive conscious thought I can muster is enough. I hope I still want to be a father to however many children. I hope my main priority is still to contribute in only healthful ways to every life I intersect. I hope my laugh is still louder than my sighs. I hope my sighs are still more frequent than when I cry. I hope I still maintain a healthy body, and a sharp mind. I hope I read often, and think even more often. I hope I miss everyone, but regret nothing. I hope people think about me from time to time and a sly, nostalgic smile spreads across their lips, and causes their eyes to haze and remember times we had and how I was there for them in serious times and light hearted ones. I hope I can still talk to anyone and find value in everyone. I hope I still believe there is such thing as a bad movie, a bad song, but not a bad book. That the best feeling in the world is when you finish a phenomenal book, and your heart gasps and grasps at the sentiment too big to begin to articulate, but settles for settling on the contented conclusion that the best feelings are those that are too complicated and vast to really know. I hope all my parents are still alive and taking care of one another in their own way. I hope my brother will have settled in to a comfortable rhythm with a comfortable girl and that his restless soul can finally know some peace. I hope I have a wider vocabulary. I hope I still know all my friends in my asterisk cities well enough to drop in and be warmly received. I hope I still want to live to be 110. I hope I’ve seen beaches and ice bergs, open wounds and aged scars, inside of hearts and minds more capable and feeling than my own, so many clouds and so much sunshine unique to that sky. I hope that the rumble of a thunderstorm and falling of night still ignite in me some small flame that I still don’t really understand. I hope my possessions are few but my wisdom and contentment are great. I hope I have multiple degrees. I hope I am even more humble than I am now. I hope the Captain has found the happiness--the ship--she has and will always deserve in arms more comforting than mine on an apartment balcony. I hope she feels the moments that I think about everything she taught me, wherever on our rotating sphere she may be. I hope my hair is long and my beard full. I hope I wake up most days and stay as excited as I am these days at the prospect of another twenty-four hours on this planet—because people forget. They forget that the ultimate privilege is life itself. There is no need for you to exist, no universal, cosmological dictate. The things we build in our lives are only that—construction. I hope people see more clearly. I hope that people understand that being kind to everyone, in any circumstance, is the most effective way to serve oneself, and that intentionally serving oneself is the best way to bring detriment to oneself because ultimately you make the world in which you live more difficult—the property value of this earth diminishes. I hope I never hear anyone ever say, “I weep for the future”. Why? Because you miss the past? A past filled with deception, racism, misogyny, genocide, unimaginative socialization, uniform personality, voids of information, shorter life expectancy, and a generally less tolerant global populous? I weep for the past. I pray for the future. Every day, to the vagaries of the universe, I pray. I hope that in a few years, I find myself rambling down an Australian highway, thinking about writing this with a smile on my face and an imperturbable peace in my heart. I hope I hope.

Miss Lucy