coal mines.

i wrote this a while ago, on my phone. only now got around to posting it.

the sun has set and i am riding the train from wales back to london, cocooned in music, and contemplating my life. i spent last night lying drunk on a bed of pebbles, crushed by the dome of shooting stars overhead, enveloped by the sound of waves crashing, with lungs collapsing from the weight of being. i was turning my sobs into coughs while i wondered how those with me could giggle so nonchalantly, when presented with an emotion as beautiful.

as i was feeling so overwhelmed, so full that i might burst, i still felt the hollow hole, felt that something was missing.

i thought back to how complete i felt a few years ago, wondered whether that was the missing ingredient. rather than fall back into ghosts, i let my thoughts wander down a new path. then it hit me suddenly: i am, in fact, missing something as of yet undefined. the people i've met here have seemed quite content. they all seem truly surprised by my constant yearning, my endless searching, and my inability to settle. i've never quite understood those things about myself either, to be perfectly honest. but sitting on that beach last night, and now riding on this train, i can finally see the difference, or at least, the reasoning. almost everyone else, here and back home, has a purpose. for example, artist james is a painter, james from class is a drummer, rob is a teacher and guitarist, and so on. they have that one driving force that defines their lives. i, on the other hand, do not. i feel as if i am constantly in search of it. in fact, my entire life seems to be one long scavenger hunt with no defined goal, only conflicting indecipherable clues in the form of emotions.

rob made an uncannily accurate observation on myself the other day. i was describing to him my life in america, and he asked what was most important to me. at first, i thought of my dog noodle. but i realized that if that were true, i would never have left noodle with a stranger so i could travel. i then thought of my mother, and quickly realized that couldn't be true, or i would have never wandered so far from home, so often. so i told him of the pursuit of my yellow bird, and he remarked upon the fact that i am always searching. i never stay in one place for more than three months without traveling elsewhere or moving homes, and i never keep friends, or relationships, for more than a few months. he surmised that i am looking for something in the places i go, and in the people i meet, and that i have yet to find it. he thinks that i will never find it, that my personality has destined my life to about the pursuit rather than the realization. he said that he doubts i would know what to do if i ever found that something vague i am looking for. he's not sure i would even recognize or realize it, let alone be prepared to handle the end of my search.

i am reluctant to say he is right, as pretentious as he was. but the more i analyze my behavioral patterns, the more i begin to think he is correct. it distresses me that a stranger can, upon only the second encounter, analyse these traits and still come to the correct conclusion, when i've been trying solve the problem myself for years. 

having realized this has left me just as confused as when i started. because i literally start to hurt when i stay in one place. and i am not totally convinced that a life about starting over is a bad thing. beyond that, i truly enjoy the search, even though i have no idea what i am looking for. am i destined to forever be on a search? one driving force behind my life could be that i am a student, but even that is a form of searching. what is it i am looking for?


i am at a loss as to what to do about this. 


"good morning," said the little prince.

"good morning," said the railway switchman.

"what is it you do here?" the little prince asked.

"i sort out travelers, in bundles of a thousand," said the switchman. "i send off the trains that carry them: now to the right, now to the left." 

a brilliantly lighted express train shook the switchman's cabin as it rushed by with a roar like thunder. 

"they are in a great hurry," said the little prince. "what are they looking for?" 

"not even the locomotive engineer knows that," said the switchman. 

and a second brilliantly lighted express thundered by, in the opposite direction.

"are they coming back already?" demanded the little prince.

"these are not the same ones," said the switchman. "it is an exchange."

"were they not satisfied where they were?" asked the little prince.

"no one is ever satisfied where he is," said the switchman.

and they heard the roaring thunder of a third brilliantly lighted express.

"are they pursuing the first travelers?" demanded the little prince.

"they are pursuing nothing at all," said the switchman. "they are asleep in there, or if they are not asleep they are yawning. only the children are flattening their noses against the windowpanes."

"only the children know what they are looking for," said the little prince. "they waste their time over a rag doll and it becomes very important to them; and if anybody takes it away from them, they cry..."

"they are lucky," the switchman said.

[le petit prince. antoine de saint-exupery]