Returning

October 21, 5:59PM

Don't we always end where we begin, or begin where we end.

I cannot find the wise man anymore. I often take the "L" downtown to search for him, looking in all of his favorite spaces . I spend fall afternoons in the places he loved the most. Where is he now? There's a chance that there's no room in this city for those like him. We talk about demographic changes with regards to age, or gender, or any of the other frameworks we construct. I don't see the city that way. I like to view it through the lens of personality. And the Wise Man, well, he was the Old Soul. Perhaps, his kind should be seen as diminishing rapidly, soon to be missing entirely. I like to believe that he moved on to continue to bring life to those who have lost it.

His absence is really an opportunity to live in the moment, an invitation to decide not to run when there is possibility. After all, someone has to become what he was. It's too hard and the world is too cold without kindness and encouragement. And as for what happens next, why guess?