Diary of a Heretic

Here I am with only days to go before my epic pilgrimage to my ancestral home. Here I am once again on that ongoing quest for that bloody Holy Grail; and outwardly I appear quite calm and controlled, and inwardly I appear quite calm and controlled. But I have been dogged with this throbbing headache for the past few days. There is of course the tell tale signs of tension, the top of my head hurts, my neck is a bit stiff and muscles are all bunched up at the top of my shoulders. “I should go to the doctor for a check up” I say to myself. Should, but won’t. Well I console myself if I die overseas it is all part of the journey. I catch my reflection in the train window on my way to work and think “you’re a stupid bastard”. I should be more focussed on this trip and instead I am off in my dream world again, living out all possible scenarios, all most gallant and noble, all so very romantic. An image flashes before my eyes of an old beaten man on an old horse. Ha! I say Don Quixote, of course, not some gallant knight on his trusty steed looking for adventure but somewhat beaten up 52 year old out there making a fool of herself chasing windmills.

There are some striking parallels in this story; the central characters are the elderly, idealistic knight, who sets out on his old horse Rosinante to seek adventure, and the squire Sancho Panza, who accompanies his master from one failed adventure to another. This parallel of Sancho in no way reflects upon my friend Dianne who is accompanying me on this journey, (I’d better apologise at this point before I mysteriously disappear somewhere on the trip). Anyway, their relationship, although they argue most fiercely, is ultimately founded upon mutual respect. Gradually over time they take on some of each other’s attributes. Well I certainly hope that gets me out of a sticky situation!

Well here is where the story really seems to fit. During his travels, Don Quixote’s over excited imagination blinds him to reality: he thinks windmills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, and galley-slaves to be oppressed gentlemen. Don Quixote is passionately devoted to his own imaginative creation, and of course to the beautiful Dulcinea. “Oh Dulcinea de Tobosa, day of my night, glory of my suffering…” etc, etc blah, blah, blah. Any way this is me, I have the most over excited imagination that blinds my reality. I am always in this eternal hope that I will receive some incredible enlightenment and I will transcend to some magical mystical spiritual plane, far removed from the madding crowd or should I say the maddening crowd, because most people really piss me off lately (friends excluded, of course).

So why do I go on this ongoing eternal quest for truth, justice and the American way? Oops, you know what I mean. I don’t bloody know why, all I know that there has to be something out there that is more than what is here. If that’s makes sense; I want to have the total experience, I want to go on incredible journeys and save humanity and at the end of my life I want to say that this life counts. That real or unreal, my experiences have made all the hardships and the mundane crap worth it. Yes I am Don Quixote, an old fool on a beaten horse, but I am not going to be stopped by reality, by the plain boring everyday existence, in truth I am going on an adventure into unknown territory. I don’t know what will befall me but whether the experience will be what I am hoping it will be will probably come down to how active my imagination is. Oh, a note to Caroline if in the unlikely event that I pass from this world into the next I want this song to be read as my eulogy and yes “To dream the impossible dream”.