Going Home

Sol "Going Home" Scene from Soylent Green

Lost . . . The reflection in the mirror was not significantly different than it had been a year ago.  A flaxen mane still framed her features.  Her face more square than round was still composed of a strong chin, straight, defined nose and high cheek bones.  Soft brown eyebrows still arched high above pale eyes.  Such a color that is rarely seen, they were still striking.  It was the eyes, however, that manifested the change.  Once full of laughter and life, now they held only resignation.  Not so long ago they had sparkled with the light of the unflappable spirit within, now flat and defeated.  The face of then and the face of now could be likened to the difference between the day and night skies . . . the basic structure of both the same, but the divergence undeniably palpable.

Lost . . . Of course, she knew where she was, but she no longer knew why.  She was not motivated to chase after the illusive answers that had driven her once mad life and given it some sense of purpose.  She perceived no path to follow.  She envisioned no dream to pursue.  She had only enough stamina left to place one foot in front of the other in a directionless progression.  Her wanderings – formerly an adventure, a quest of self realization, a gathering of experience and knowledge – had become an aimless passage.  She was nothing more than a ghost moving through the world . . . not connected, not connecting.

Lost . . . She no longer felt the wonder of discovery.  She no longer felt the desire to embrace her awareness.  There was no high.  There was no low.  Intensity had become apathy.  The departure of passion had leeched the color from her existence.  The vibrant hues of exploration were replaced by shades of melancholy, all shadows and obscurity.  No longer did bright white ideals and rainbows of philosophy hang in the blue sky of her thoughts and meditations.  Her contemplation had become monochromatic apprehension . . . a perpetual moonless night beleaguered by an impenetrable fog of desolation.  Her previously prized delight in what the next adventure would be was now a lament of what the next ordeal could possibly bring.

Lost . . . She had most certainly gone astray.  Somewhere in her life she had drifted into misery, but exactly how and when eluded her.   There was no single debacle that would have, in and of itself, plunged her into this disturbing chasm of despondency.  Like the slow steady drip of water upon a stone, adversity (drip), tragedy (drip), calamity (drip), catastrophe (drip) wore away her strength and had begun to eat into her very soul.  The acknowledgement of the situation did not provoke any action on her part.  The energy required to make any drastic change in her course had eroded as well.  She fully understood Sol Roth’s choice of “going home.”   Oh, what a comfort it would be to simply “go home.”