subject: The Wanderer: Part 1 of 73 [print this page] The Wanderer by Callie Roos, motivational speaker and author
Part 1 of 73
The white stinkwood tree broke right down the trunk. Three parts," I say to Xaba. "It's so depressing. It was the biggest tree in the garden. The children used to swing on it when they were small. Good memories. Maybe it signifies something?"
"What?" asks Xaba. "The tree falling over. I am turning fifty this year, you know." Xaba peers at me, considering the thought. "Since when do you believe in such nonsense?" he wants to know. I wait for him to say something. There is silence for a while, then he reacts. "The tree just did what it had to do."
"What's that?" I ask. "Move on," he says. "What do you mean?" "Everything moves. on. Look around you. Everything you see is moving. Nothing stands still." My eye catches the chair I inherited from my grandfather, a particularly beautiful chair. It is more than 100 years old and fragile. I don't really want anyone to sit on it anymore, in case it breaks. The chair is also moving on, I think. "Everything is on the move," Xaba interrupts my thoughts. "Even you. You are getting older. I can see that you are changing. You are different these days." "What do you mean?" I ask. "More obstinate!" he retorts. "Why are you giving me a hard time now?" I want to know. "We are talking about the white stinkwood." He smiles as though he had just been waiting for the right moment. Xaba is the first to begin speaking again. "People want everything to stay the same. No change. Keep everything as it was in the old days - if only we could go back to the way things were. But it does not work that way," he says. "It was not meant to be like that. We were made for only one thing, and that is to be able to change. To move on."
"Scary!" I say softly. "And now that is the one thing that wears us down the most. We fight this thing, the one thing we should really be good at," says Xaba " and that is to change, to just move on."
