A Face on the Water

“Time is a face on the water”—this is a proverb from Mejis

King said it, of course he did, who else would have said it?  I think most of the stuff I write or talk about comes from King in one way or another.  The other thing is I look to King’s words as art, and his words, like lyrics to your favorite song are always open for interpretation.  That is the nature of art. 

It’s funny when I talked to a friend right after college about writing and storytelling or as King would say Tale Spinning, he asked what the meaning behind something I was telling him about was.  I said why does it have to mean anything, why can’t it just be for good story telling.  I never forgot that conversation and it actually turned me away from wanting to write.  I felt like I wasn’t smart enough or talented enough to write something that had a double meaning. 

 Fifteen years later I wonder if I ever knew myself at all back then.  Gabe a co-worker, or do I dare call him friend, I am not sure yet, told me the other day that I was duplicitous.  That he would never think of writing something and be speaking to two or three people at the same time and it meaning two different things when thinking about readers.  I marveled at that.  That I could actually write with some type of agenda.  He said he would have never thought about that.  You write things and let others figure out what you mean or don’t.  If they are left thinking about it then perhaps just perhaps you actually caught there attention.

When I read “time is a face on water” I have stopped trying to understand what King meant.  In my humble opine I don’t think it matters what he meant.  What matters is what the words mean to me.  His book is art and therefore it up for interpretation.  Just like what I write here is up for interpretation.  Some people might think I am just a spoiled brat who is really insecure therefore, I hide behind my weight.   Some people might think he is just talking to talk.  He isn’t really trying.  Others might think that I am just a cry baby.  I know there certainly are people out there that still think my issue is still as simple as just don’t eat bad.  If it were only that simple then I would have done it.  The truth is I am just being here telling my story the best that I can.

Searching through some old Pictures for another blog, I came across that attached picture.  It was me with a beer and cigarette at the age of 17.  It was the class of 1993 Senior Prom.  The girl in the picture was an old friend.  The picture tells the story of my life back then.  I was not an athlete in high school, I drank beer, and I smoked.  

17 was a good age for me.  It was right before the mind started to break.  It was before my senior year and going to bed at 7 p.m.  It was before I was tired of all my “friends” showing up every day, all day at my parents’ house and never leaving. 

I look at that picture and all I can think is “Time is a face on the water”.  It changes and ripples with each pebble tossed or when the wind blows.  We change and ripple the same way.  I think that is what that saying means to me is our lives are in a constant state of fluctuation.  That nothing lasts forever and if you blink you will miss something wonderful. 

I can’t believe it has been a life time since that picture.  I can’t believe I am still dealing with the base issues now that I dealt with as an insecure teenager.  I am still trying to free my mind.  No matter how I say this it is going to sound bad.  I am still fat.  However, I look at that picture and I don’t really look very fat. I am not trying to whine here.  Really, I swear that I am not.  I am not looking to pass blame or anything like that but all I see is a picture of a kid who was having fun and then got terribly lost in life. 

Time is a face on the water and the wars go on and the years go and all we can do is ask what has happened to the time.  I am not who I wanted to be when I was 17, not even a little bit, not even close.  However, I also can’t sit here and say the time has been wasted.  No, not that.  I firmly believe that time can never be wasted. 

You can’t cry over spilt milk.  I can’t change the wasted time.  Hell I can’t even go back and tell that kid to be who he wants to be.  Fuck them all, they don’t matter.  Believe in yourself.  Do what is right by you.  Stand and be true.  Time is a face on the water and the world moves on and the only thing you are left with is you. 

I can’t go back and change the time between when the photograph was taken.  Everything from then till now is my hero’s trial.  It is my test to see if I can get to where I want to go.  Can I be who I was born to be?  Will I rise to the occasion?

The truth is I am not sure how much of the past I would change if I could.  Just like I can’t look to hold on to time that is gone.  We all have our regrets.  We all have the diet we should have stuck to.  Or that run we should have gone on.  However, I think it all works out the way it is supposed to in the end. 

I think the time is a face on the water is a concept I will have revisit.  I feel like there is so much more that I should be saying.  However, work and life are getting in the way.   I see who I was, and what I can be again.  I will be a better more mature version of that handsome kid in the picture.  I will also be a person who will say what he needs to say and do what he needs to do.  Because unlike that kid, this man knows that time is a face on the water.  This knows that you can’t be given everything that sometimes you have to work for what you want.    

What I will take from this is not regret and yearning for who I was but excite and hope for who I will be once again.  Things are going well for me.  I know that.  I am growing each and every day.  Working on putting my mind right.  Working to put my life right and knowing right now that I will reach my goals.  That I will be who I want to be and that person is the one I am.  See what I didn’t know then that I know now.  Is that I am OK.  That I am OK and living the life I want to live.  I am happy in this moment in time.  I will make the best out of the situations I am dealing with.  One that knows the only reason is it is a long fall from grace is that we have so much to learn on the way back up. 

This may or may not have made any sense.  My points might not get across.  However, it will fade like a ripple on calm water.  Just like reflection you see in the water that washing away in the waves.  Just like time drifts away.  I am going to walk now… Long days and Pleasant nights…