by Jodi Keeling

It was untamed passion that drove me out of town. Desire had my heart in flames, my head swimming in the seas of vertigo. And once again, my familiar world was riding the edge of existence. Once again, I longed to see the vicissitudes of my life slowly fade from view into a thin line, a dot, a nothing in the rear view mirror as I motored on I needed clarity, and sought comfort in the simple monotony of the High Plains landscape. I had to GO. Those who know me nod knowingly amongst themselves "there she goes again, running from."

To them I say NO, I am running TO.

For whenever life gets to be too much I find refuge in seeing it all slowly disappear from view. Nothing-ness has a way of giving me perspective. I love the void. For it is only by facing the possibility of my own annihilation that I gain anew understanding, it is only by getting away that I am truly able to come back. And so I left Austin to visit my girlfriend Mindy, not really knowing if I'd come back, or where I'd go if I didn't. She was there, in Lubbock, helping her mother Ruth Ann cope with the recent onset of blindness after having an experimental surgery that was intended to improve her eyesight. Some might say, such is life, we are living longer than ever before. And maybe that's true. It is true though that Ruth Ann's situation is not so unusual. In fact, it is not unusual at all for an 80 year old woman to go blind while her 82 year old husband also loses his mind to Alzheimer's. It seems you and I, we are all living on a precipice balanced carefully at the edge of the abyss.

The question then must be do we shrink or expand at the sight of it? Ruth Ann, she copes with the void by holding fast to the familiar. A voice-activated phone and computer keep her linked up to those she loves. A series of daily eye exercises everyday, doctors and an acupuncturist all help her to hang on to what little vision she has left. I cope with suffocation from the familiar by forever seeking-out the unknown. My life has been a series of small cataclysmic events that continuously plunge me into the abyss. I feel very uncomfortable when nothing is happening. Monotony is death to me, the familiar suffocates me and so I run. When nothing is happening, I run. Together Mindy and I ran all the way to New Mexico to a tiny village named Dixon. Our first night there I took a long walk out into the snow capped hills. The shadows grew long in the bright moonlight hanging, suspended in the starry sky. Taking in a long deep breath I looked up to see the galaxy hanging over me.

I laughed. I am sitting still on a spinning ball that is hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour. I close my eyes. Within I see a similar view to the stars that hang over me. And it becomes clear to me that the passion that propelled me here also draws me back to see my familiar life anew, seek out the unknowns in the known, dive into the abyss of the familiar and find a new leaf to turn over. I stand up, turn and run home to stand still.