Jumping

I can't remember what happens at the end of Papillion. As I remember it, one man jumps...the Clint Eastwood type... and the other one decides it's better to stay behind and tend his garden. He'd lose his glasses if he jumped anyway. They'd be repaired so many times. The impact of hitting the surface from fifty feet up would have cracked the lenses completely. And his roses were coming in and the vegetable garden was yielding something. No need for excuses when a person is content.

All lives have jumping off points. They are offered to us just for a while just while the tide is right. A little door quietly ajar, not open, not closed. Some are points we have created ourselves secretly wanting. We've been striving for it...walking or running,back flipping, back stroking towards this point which requires a final sweeping gesture of acceptance....that feels like jumping off a cliff... and then....some are points offered to us created by other people who toiled along side us. Some of us jump and some stay behind. If you jump, you just have to go and do it all again. Until you feel that way....that in jumping, you only have to replant the same garden you've already got...until then, you'll keep jumping. If you stay behind, ...if...it's an equal departure which ever route you choose.