My Passion

“What is your passion?” my friends ask. “What is it that excites your soul?”

It is easy at first, to answer this question: my work, my wife, my home. Then, deeper I dig, and think of my photography, my music, my books. I get pretty excited to talk of serious things with my friends, using a cup of coffee as an excuse to visit, to dig deeper into my heart, to find soul talk.

The answer is not in a book, and only some hints are found in my poetry, my music, my art. Very little is found in what I do at work, though there are many fruits of my passion to be found there.

I dig deeper, and longer, feeling a need in my soul to go camping and exploring, to find that room in my heart to really think about this question. Some serious hours of solitude and being away from the daily routine give me room to think, to dream, to ponder, seriously ponder.

The answer, perhaps, is in the rising of the full moon over Crater Lake, watching, feeling the lake turn from turquoise to a very deep indigo blue, as the Sun and the Moon dance about the sky. The answer, perhaps, is in the air as I share coffee with my friends, or while I sing a song while my fingers dance along my guitar.

My passion lies within my life, and I seem only truly alive when I am in nature, being my primitive self, absorbing all that I can from what this planet and this corner of the universe can offer me. It is also in giving it back, in my songs, my poems, my art, and even in how I drink my coffee. My passion is what I want to leave behind, as I journey onward, to give to those left behind.

When I die, my friends will still ask the question, “What was his passion?” And in my life, they will know the answer.