Essence

The question was asked, and I skirted it like a child running from a wave moving quickly across wet sand.
What is my nature? Too many things cloud my mind, opposing thoughts, statements made and then refuted. I search through the mess, looking for a simple answer. But even that word hurts to look at, like a glare from the sun that could burn to the core of me, making me blind and sweaty and full of hardened thoughts. And so I run skeptically, chasing foam and seawater though staying clear of its chilly touch. Every answer is a guess. But maybe that’s fine, just a tiny lap of water on my calves won’t hurt.
And so what am I?
Am I the moving arrow? The thing moving through time, the constant motion of work.
Eternal.
And this thing, this essence... I truly search for some word, anything to describe it, but it slips through even the most outstretched part of my mind. This thing invisible yet tangible. This thing, quiet and eternal. Energy. A lost sentence made of color, shape and turns.
My function? I am the vessel, the thing through which creation moves.
I am the open door, the portal to the other sides, the other places, the realms where there is different knowledge, knowledge without facts and dates.
On earth, am I the Other way? An example of something else, one of the many paths.
I am another option.
Am I the fish in the river, a creator on earth, choosing time over money?
Colorful, lazy, moving, working through tears, watching sunsets and computer screens.
Am I the future teacher, now the student?
I am a link in the chain, a pink tile in the mosaic of our lineage, another vessel that leads forwards and back. There are truths that cannot be explained, and with each small remembering, I become a stronger link into the past, connecting to the future that waits for my return.
I am the door.
I am the dreamer alone in my bed. I am the dream of another playing with fire and paint while eating donuts. I am the being that struggles under a cloak of confusion and learned rubbish.
I am the vessel, the fleshy pot holding something precious inside, the thing I have glimpsed rarely. This thing that I cannot describe, the essence I search to understand. I am the hidden, the cracked door. The flickering light.

And so I play with the thoughts, searching slightly for something, something, anything.
There are a dozen question marks behind my thoughts and each answer depends on the day, on the rain, on the mood in which I sit and listen.
A thousand changes and the questions turn in on themselves, becoming laughter blowing in the wind, a hint of jasmine as we tilt closer to the sun once again.
My essence is the shifting of time.
Constant.
In motion.
So close.
Yet somewhere beyond the stars.