Tilting at Windmills

("Dark Pool Nebula #3", 2011, original oil) Tilting at Windmills In this modern world, in these modern times adventurers of the spirit are looked down upon at least among my family and friends. It’s all good if kept at a distance, but too up close and personal and it quickly becomes uncomfortable. This is the nature of madness after all, easy to admire or pity from afar difficult to contain, thus contagious up close. What are these giants anyway but figments of imagination relics from a child’s fever dream, youthfully flirted with out on the ledge and only recalled much later with nostalgic fondness until the insulation begins to wear thin, again as in youth, the myelin sheaths exposed to all elements no longer undeveloped, but overwhelmed, weakened by so many years, so many close calls, expectations, disappointments, gains and losses that the highs and lows all blend into a flat plain stretching endlessly across a plateau hard won difficult to reach, exhausting to maintain as the mountains continue to shimmer and call their wind-horses fluttering sweet melodies on the breeze silky sirens of another shore… which in themselves are timeless yet loom large when we feel small. And the truth is we are all small. (12/7/23)