Ride The White Horse

The sun and the clouds were having a ball. Spinning around and around in gay abandonment. The light show was tongue-in-cheek dramatic. A sense of fun as a last hurrah. Autumn was nigh but content to pause and allow Summer a little more time. The leaves could have another few days in their present clothes. Soon a new wardrobe would arrive.

The walk to the clifftop was arduous. Not quite as remembered. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck, cooled and dribbled down his back. He felt unclean as much as he was aware of how unfit he had become. He stopped to take in the view any number of times. An excuse he must make to himself as he grabbed much needed rest.

The boy who had loved this place had leapt up the winding path like a mountain goat. Steep was a word that had no real meaning to him. This was his playground. The path to the summit was only fun, and then it opened out upon a world of wonder. A place of dreams. Familiar in its constantly changing faces. This was where the boy learnt to see beyond the surface. Where he’d understood the possibilities of love. The constants that held true meaning. He’d learnt so much more than this as he stood enraptured upon the clifftop. Then the man he became forgot the boy.

Today, as he reached the end of his climb, there was a stiff breeze that cut through his clothing and made the damp on his back an ice patch. Invigorated and assailed he stood firm. He’d suffered worse. This was not his place of suffering. That was not the point of his being here.

Now, the sky dance met with a playful, roiling sea. The light playing over the surface of waters hiding a whole other world. That was a part of the mystique for him. Knowing that there were other worlds. Some only a heartbeat away. Before him was the world of his ancestors. He had come from those waters and adapted and changed to this new way of being. He marvelled at the miracle that he was. Humbled at last, he smiled and allowed the anxieties and worries of the world behind him to wash away in the waves that rose in primal greeting. High above this vista he was more a part of everything than he had ever been elsewhere.

This had been a long time coming, and yet it took no time at all. This pilgrimage of sorts. He told himself that he’d intended to return here long ago. Always there were reasons not to do so. His excuse was life got in the way. And yet here life was. Life in the raw. Simple and unadulterated. The connection was re-established at last and the little boy emerged with no hesitancy.

Now there was only one thing for it. He was walking again with no conscious thoughts of doing so. Carried along by his sense of joy and wonder. Here he was free. Here he lost himself in the majesty of the sea. Calling to him. Always calling. A song that lifted him. A song that soothed him.

He knew where he was going, but there was no conscious thought. Only a loving intent. He was smiling in anticipation as he neared the spot where it awaited him. The Tree. His tree. A silent and fitting companion in this kingdom of theirs.

As he found his old friend, his smile faltered, but it did not fail. A temporary blip in his energy. A dimming and then a surge of light. The Tree was still there. Albeit in altered circumstance.

“You too?” he whispered as he placed his forehead and palms gently and reverentially upon the chest of his friend. Their eternal greeting. Another connection well made. He stood like that for an age. There was no time here. All the artificial constraints of life had fallen away along the path. This was their sacred place. The rules were few and they were all made from love.

He held onto to The Tree with his left hand as he stepped back to observe his old pal, “you’ve grown.” Raising his eyes skyward he wore a grin as he took in the canopy of leaves flowing this way and that. Veins of light pulsing a warm greeting. This was a filter to the world that had always made sense to him. Even as his neck ached and his eyes began to swim, he remained where he was. Not wanting the moment to end.

Eventually, his tired bones and aching muscles protested sufficiently for him to heed them. He brought himself to the ground. Struggling to a seated position. “Well, we never did this,” he said as he sat by The Tree and looked out towards the horizon. This was a moment all for the boy he had been. Now he realised that he still was that little version of himself. Always had been. He felt another ripple of joy as he kicked his feet back and to as they dangled over the cliff. An unexpected first at the last.

Now he looked to his left as he patted the wrinkled skin of his oldest friend. A pause before casting his eyes downwards to look upon that which had so long been hidden. A reluctance to look upon his friend exposed in such a way. Naked and precarious in this life. Wanting to remember him as he was. Not like this.

The misgivings of the adult were usurped by the child as he took the roots of The Tree in. There could only be wonder at these hidden depths. He saw The Tree anew. Saw it in its entirety for the very first time. Understood it in ways that he never had the capacity for before.

In darkness, The Tree had begun. Its strength was not in what was visible. No one saw where its strength lay, they disregarded this dark half. Seeing his friend as he truly was at last cast light on the man’s own dark half. As much a part of him as that which he dared show to the world. At last, in understanding his friend, he understood himself and the love between them grew all the more deeply. Roots plunging down and providing the strength to go on.

Laughter punctuated the ebb and flow of the tides below and the man added his tears to the waters. Tears for every aspect of his life. Joy and sorrow combining and falling away from him.

There was a lightness in his being as he scrabbled to his feet and surveyed the contours of his boyhood companion. The Tree was impossibly big. Surely he’d never climbed it? A myth made memory by an excitable boy.

“Only one way to find out.” With a fair bit of grunting and puffing, he carefully untied his laces and placed his shoes at the base of The Tree. Always the same spot. Always neat and tidy. The laces inside the shoe to ensure they did not become damp. Then another pat on his old friend’s flank, “ready old boy?”

That was when the magic happened and the little boy truly returned. He shinned effortlessly up the tree and into the branches. Pushed his way out and across the favourite of all the limbs and emerged from the foliage to stand proudly to attention at the prow of his ship. A fearless sea captain who had sailed all the seven seas!

“Ahoy!” he called out to the foreign lands that lay beyond the horizon.

“Ahoy!” he called out to the brave new future that had been awaiting him all those years ago.

“Ahoy!” he called out for the pure exhilaration of a moment unlike any other. His moment. The Tree’s moment. Their unassailable moment together. He was captain of his ship. Master of his destiny. Riding atop the world across the seas of life.

“Ahoy!” he cried the word with untold joy as The Tree at last let go of this life of theirs and took them on their next adventure. White horses rearing before them in a chorus of welcome and wonder.