The Boiling of the Bones

5. Mendon Ponds

I woke Saturday before dawn and discreetly ate a bowl of Frosted Flakes. I made a couple sandwiches and stuffed them and a couple cokes in a backpack, then snuck out the door before anyone awoke. I strapped my guitar case over my shoulder beside my backpack and rode my bike to Mendon Ponds. It was a twenty-six-hundred-acre county park with seven ponds, if you counted the Devil's Bathtub, which was really more of a boggy mud hole than an actual pond.

Miles upon miles of hiking trails crisscrossed open meadows and traced muddy shorelines passing through heavily forested rolling hills. It was one of those few rare special places you don't find very often.

I hiked for an hour at a relaxed pace on the Bird Song Trail that looped around through the woods. It felt refreshing to unwind and escape the world and enjoy the cool breeze and feel the crunching of leaves underfoot as I listened to the calls of the birds.

All the other kids were writing essays and taking SAT test prep courses, exaggerating their accomplishments, as they frantically filled out college applications. As a sort of de facto initiation ritual into the hyper competitive, dog-eat-dog, world of capitalism; they had to create a brand and sell themselves to the admissions departments of the elite institutions.

They would show off only the best sides of themselves—like the guy at the grocery store who stacked the oranges and apples and turned the bruised side to the back so that you wouldn't see it. They were pimping themselves like used car salesmen. It was all so phony.

"You've got to have a college degree!"

I kept hearing my dad's screaming voice echoing over and over in my head. Everyone kept telling me that—even my friends. I got it. If you wanted a good job, you had to go to college. I didn't want a good job. I didn't want to spend forty years chained to a desk, taking orders like a mindless robot, so I could buy a faster car and a bigger house in a giant contest to get more stuff than everyone else.

The people I knew who lived that way never seemed satisfied. No matter how rich you were, there was always someone richer. There were always newer versions of better stuff you didn't have. It was an impossible quest. They just kept running and running, like hamsters on a wheel, never getting anywhere—never finding joy or happiness. If that was all I had to look forward to--the best life had to offer, I would have ended it right then and there.

There had to be something different, a higher sense of purpose or meaning. I was convinced that although elusive, it was out there somewhere. Occasionally, I saw little flashes of it--quick glimpses in other people's eyes. Or when I shut out the world and all its distractions through meditation and music, I sensed there was something dormant deep within my soul that had to break free. I had to discover my true self.

Most people didn't truly realize what they wanted or needed to be happy. They lived their lives on a shallow, superficial level, oblivious to any deeper purpose. They mindlessly followed the herd and made money and then like sheep, spent it where the advertisers told them to, usually on cheap, mass produced, disposable crap.

I flushed all such thoughts from my mind and just soaked in the warmth of the sun's rays on my face in the cool and breezy Indian summer air.

I felt like playing my guitar, so I found a grassy hilltop and was about to sit down by a flagpole when I looked up and saw her--the hot girl from the coffeeshop. She was sitting on a blanket by herself and crying. I froze momentarily as I remembered my embarrassing gaff, but I knew instinctively I had to talk to her--this was my only shot.

As I approached, she looked away and wiped tears from her eyes, composing herself. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. She was like a goddess--an Italian Supermodel with mascara running down her cheeks.