THE ISTHMUS

THE ISTHMUS (a narrow area of land with the sea on each side, joined to a large land mass at each end)
She could be the isthmus connecting my wishes with the reality. She could be a metaphor for the fragility of the integration of the divine and the physical. She is someone I wish I could call mine.

This is a wish I wish would be granted. At such occasions, I’m reminded that there are other gardens in the world greener than the one before me. I only have to move ahead. I don’t want to move ahead, I don’t want to know greener pastures, I don’t want to know anyone else. In her, I find a divinity that I am doomed to worship. I want to worship her for the will and soul which animate a man through the countless aeonons of his being. The flesh dies, or at least it changes, and its passions pass, but the other passion of the spirit--------the longing for oneness and unity-------is undying in itself. I don’t want to move away from the isthmus, I want to stay here. I want time to pause at this juncture.

The passage of time depresses me. The ruthlessness with which it flows on-----a swift and continuous movement--------it frightens me, but I can only be a mere spectator.

I don’t want to be a mere spectator. I want to barge in and do something concrete. I don’t want time to move ahead. I want time to stay exactly where it has brought me. This is a juncture where the crisis could precipitate into the most beautiful form. The crisis might give way to an extremely unpalatable end.

The unpalatable end would have to be endured by me in whatever form it might be delivered. To be doomed to behold the world through a smoked glass for the rest of one’s life is the worst punishment that one can get. I don’t want to be punished for something that I haven’t done. I’ve been merely struggling against the smoke.

The smoke in the glass has kept me away from my goal. I’ve been struggling against the tides of time and fate. Time and fate have not been very kind to me. Fate was kind to me when it brought me to the isthmus, but time insists on moving ahead. I’m afraid of the future. I don’t want to move ahead. I wish I could hold the flow of time. I don’t want to leave the isthmus.

The isthmus is where I want to pause. I wish time would pause too. I wish I had a magic lamp with a genie. Here is another wish. I will never be satisfied.