Friday, January 6, 2012

Message in a Bottle

This week I have been thinking about a message in a bottle.  Not that Nicholas Sparks POS or the Police song (although now I find that I am humming it to myself).  These things fascinate me - a lot - more than is healthy really.  When I was little I always hoped to find one bobbing about in the lake where my grandparents lived.  Admittedly it was not a small lake, about 4000 acres, but if I had found one, it most likely would have been from one of the other lake residents and would not have held me the way one that had journeyed thousands of miles over years or decades would.  Those were the kind that enchanted my child's imagination.  The very idea of being connected to someone I didn't know (obviously waaaay before Al Gore thought up the interwebs :) reaching out and speaking to me over countless miles and indeterminate time was fodder for all kinds of daydreams. 

I have never found my message in a bottle, although I did perpetrate a fake pirate map in a bottle for my nephew Josh while we were in NC 15 years ago.  It was the hit of that trip.  Digressing.  Anyway - I still think about these things a lot.  Feeling like maybe it's time for me to send one out into the world.  Who knows. 

While I am engrossed in bottle-y message daydreaming I have this idea jump fully formed into my head.  Naysayers may skip ahead.  What if I have already let loose some bottle from some distant shore in a previous lifetime hoping that this me here and now will find it?  What would I tell my future self?  What if, in essence, my spirit is that message and this ephemeral body the bottle?  Messages gathering steam and speed after countless lives.  Each stashed into a new bottle waiting for me to simply remember it's out there and look for it.   


Message to the finder:



Ahoy traveler!

You are never alone.
You are beautiful just like you are right now.
You are loved by the restless hoard beyond the waves.
Write that book.  Right NOW!  There will never be a better time.
Enjoy the people around you, they will only be with you a short time.
Have lots of ear-popping, toe-curling sex.
Don’t waste time on bad food, bad TV, bad anything really.
Find beauty in places overlooked.
Take time to linger in the aspenglow.
Build sculptures in snow, in popsicle sticks, in mud, in whatever delights your hands.
Laugh. 
Laugh more.
 Trust your inner compass.  
Do not be afraid.  It’s a waste of time.
Ditto anger. 

Always look inward and toward that horizon and watch for me.

Your past and future self


5 comments:

  1. Nice, Mary! Enjoyed catching up on your blog this evening. And nice to see the small stones again. W-C

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  2. I love your message!

    I've always been fascinated by the message in a bottle concept. But I don't think throwing the bottle in a duckpond would work out real well...so I haven't done it.

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  3. LOVE. THIS. SO. MUCH!

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  4. Thanks everyone. Just goes to show you how universal some things are in our collective imaginations.

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  5. So refreshing. Thank you.

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