Life Gets in the Way – The Writings of Tom Grasso

Today I envision I am on a mountain. I can smell the freshness of winter coming with each inhalation, and can feel the release of the warmth inside of me into the entirety of all around me. I can sense my own smallness in the silence that is while feeling the enormity of who I am in the noise. The rushing waters in the creek just beyond my eyesight remind me that the Earth does give, while the remnants of man found in trash that eases its way down the waterway reminds me that I do take. I can hear the songs of birds given me cadence as I head upwards toward the sky. I give thanks to the young tree that gives me stability when I stumble on the mountains steepness, and offer praise to the old oak that allows me to rest on it when the walking becomes to much. How fast I can stumble down this mountain, how slow is the climb back up.

The air is clean, the sounds are natural. There are no cars or planes or trains or others to distract me from that which I am a part of. I can feel the breath enter my lungs and can feel its gift travel throughout my body. That is the brilliance of the effort, the more my body needs the more I appreciate what it receives. I never think of the gift of breath as much of anything until I need to breath hard. I never appreciate the gift of food until I feel the pangs of hunger. Perhaps I need to feel them more. Perhaps I need to challenge this body more so that the mind can appreciate all of the things it takes for granted.

I look up and see the sun through a clear blue sky. The wind makes music in the limbs of the trees around me and I keep beat to the sound that rings in my head. I am nearing the summit, I can see the top through eyes that have so often seen nothing but the bottom. I can hear the silence through ears that have for so long heard nothing but the noise. I can feel love in my Being that has so often felt nothing but pain.

I want to share this feeling with others, but simply ask “who am I?”. Certainly the leaves that have taught me a song in my steps know more than me. Certainly the trees that have given me stability and rest know more than me. Certainly the birds that sing a song of life know more than me. Certainly the sky giving a view to the sun above knows more than me. I am a nothing, and even in this moment’s realization the leaves, the trees, the birds and the sky say “we are nothing too. You have created us as all that we are.” “We are equals,” they seem to say, simply being until created into something by someone: superior, inferior, fearful, feared, good, bad. Imagine man just being man until he created himself as something else.

I awaken from this momentary respite. I am sitting at my desk looking at a computer screen wondering “where is my mountain?”. I don’t have a clue yet, I am simply here being distracted by life and the creations I have made in it. The noise around me is torturous, I just ask for some silence. I ask simply for clean air, clean water, and solid footing. I ask simply for view of the top so that I can get a view from the top.

Someday I will find myself within view of a summit. I will feel the solid earth beneath me, hear the silence and sounds of nature all around me and know that I am there. For now, I will let life get in the way.