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I am the tumbleweed; I realized it I when I saw the lonely little thing blowing across the dawn sand in Gisborne. Its arms, for all the good they did, were extended like an inquisitive octopus feeling for its way; not lost, exactly, but indifferent about where it ended up. Anywhere is as good as nowhere when you live like that. The sand is just another ‘where’ to cross; home is the ‘where’ you stop for a while…

I’m thinking this morning, about what happened on my way to these, perhaps my last, sands. I live in the metaphor, I suppose, but maybe I’m not alone in that. I was driving here from Taupo through a thickly forested part of the mountains that attempt to encircle it. The car radio was just static, and what I could see of the sky through the leaves, was closing in with clouds. Wind was nudging the tops of trees like the police clearing the streets with their elbows to let an important personage pass. I could tell by the gusts, that the storm they were presaging, was not far away. A few drops of rain, the acolytes, were already preparing the way.

Suddenly, with a flash of orange and a loud bang against the top of my windshield, I forgot about the storm. I hadn’t seen the colour coming, but when I noticed the feathers and a part of a wing trapped in one preparatorily moving windshield wiper I knew…

A death diminishes me as John Donne realized so many years ago; that it was unexpected, and hopefully, mercifully quick, did little to mitigate my anguish. I think we all see ourselves in the fate of others; all realize that but for the flip of a coin, it was us, who perished…

I feel myself as that bird: probably anxious about the impending storm, and in an attempt to find a more secure perch and perhaps its mate, decided to explore the world across the road. Even birds cannot escape unexpected turbulence; perhaps my car disturbed the flow of wind; perhaps I was an unanticipated distraction -like taking your eyes off the road for just a second as you round a curve.

Who is really at fault? Who is responsible for Fate? Do we not all walk tightropes in the wind of our lives? Birds, friends, me -are we not the same? Agency does that. To be able to decide to move at all, requires motivation. Will.

And yet, perhaps there are times when we move without thinking; allow ourselves to be blown across the sand -or a road. Still, isn’t there agency even in that? Is surrender not also a product of agency? Not as in accepting blame, you understand; just in letting go for however long…

I have to hope the bird was thinking of the other side when it hit my windshield; that its fantasy of another tree, another perch, another member of its flock, were snatched away instantaneously mid-dream, the vision still in its head.

I suspect we all hope our days will end like that, but in the meantime, being realistic, for most of us I fear it is the days of being blown, aimlessly, across the sand that will be hinted at in the postlude.

Or, is that another prelude? I get it wrong sometimes…