Elizabeth's Portrait ((Part 2))

January 11th 2009 11am

As I watched the city below me, I couldn't help but feel the loneliness that seemed to surround it. So many people all in the same area, and yet no one really knew anyone. Sure some were married, some worked with each other, but for the most part, none of them knew each other. It's almost as if they didn't even realize that each other existed.

Over 500 years of life, and it still didn't make sense. It was almost as if it made even less sense now, than it ever did before. The questions I had started to pour through my mind, as you get older you don't get answers, you just get more questions.

Many times when you reflect on the past, things don't seem so clear. Yet I've learned through the years several meditative routines that help you to reflect on your life. One routine in particular comes to mind

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January 17th 1632 3pm

132 years old, and I still didn't know much about life, or anything else. I had been travelling around the countries, looking for someone, anyone who could give me the answers that I was searching for. Yet everyone I could find was a century younger than I. I finally came across a village in South Africa, who claimed they had one who had to be much older than I. I nearly laughed at the thought that they could possibly have someone older than me, but figured it was worth a shot.

"Where can I find him?" I asked the villager who seemed to be the only one who could speak English.

"He is there." the man pointed into the mountains. "Two days walk from here. We can give you a camel, and some water."

My life must have been at a desperate point to take them up on their offer. But curiosity took me over. Could there really be anyone who is older than I was. If so, how did they get to be older? The curiosity drove me to accept the camel, and start a journey through the mountains before me. Not that I really knew where I was going, nor where exactly this man was, but something seemed right about it.

As looked around the scenery I couldn't think of anything more beautiful, out of all the places I'd been, out of all the things I'd seen, this place was truly unique. It seemed as if the ride its self into the desert, was something I needed. Something I longed for.

London was beautiful in its own rights, but despite how many people were around, you always felt lonely. However, in this vast land, I no longer felt alone. I could feel the life of everything around me. The trees, the birds, even the life in the waters as I passed by them. My mind was answering several questions, yet with every questioned answered a couple more always came up.

After a day of riding, I bunked down for the night and just looked up at the vast sky. A wilderness of its own rights. A place that no one would ever really know. I can understand why people slept under the stars, they made you feel welcome. No longer alone, I drifted off into the deepest sleep I had had for years.

As I woke I could smell something... something on fire. I quickly jumped up off the ground to see a man sitting nearby, with a fire blazing, and a pot on the fire.

"Good morning." His words came out as if he had spoken English all of his life. "Sorry to wake you. You looked quite peaceful."

"Who are you?"

"That's a question for another time, maybe. But I have a feeling you have other questions that you want answered first."

"What makes you think that?" I ran my fingers through my hair pushing it behind me.

"What else would bring a young woman like you out into the mountains of South Africa?"

"Perhaps I was bored with life?"

He laughed at the notion. "One bored with life, seeks adventure, not peace. You though... You seek peace."

I looked deep into his eyes as the sun began to shine over the mountains.

"Peace is nearly impossible to find though." I walked up to him, and took a seat on a log that was close by.

"Peace is easy to find. You just have to know where to look." He picked up a tea cup out of his bag sitting next to him, and handed it to me. It was china; we used to own a set that was quite similar back in London.

"Who are you?" I couldn't stop myself from asking again.

"I am who you are searching for."

"Well, if you're who I'm searching for, then I'm afraid my search may be a waste of time." I held out the cup as he poured some liquid into the cup. "What's this?"

"Old tea recipe." he smiled at me in a way that made me think that he was up to something. "Please, drink."

I held it up to my nose and took a large whiff of its sweet, succulent smell. A sweetness that I don't believe I could find anywhere else, not even in the new found chocolates. I took a sip of the tea, which ran across the palettes of my tongue, making it tingle with the sweetness that I could smell, but a stroke of something else, that I couldn't recognize.

"Good, isn't it?" he smiled as he sat back, and then took a cloak off of his head. I could see now that he looked like he was in his 60s or 70's. "So, tell me..." he began to speak after sipping the tea himself. "What brings a young beautiful woman out here, in search of an old man, like me."

"If you knew how old I was, you probably wouldn't call me young."

With a spitting from his teeth, the tea spread across the fire, lighting it up with blue and red colours, and echoing out a loud laughter through the region.

"I assure you, I am much older than you are."

"What if I told you I was 132 years of age?"

"Then I'd say you've learned more than most, but are still yet a babe in comparison." His smile was contagious, it's as if nothing in the world mattered, but I found his sentence to be confusing at best.

"You can't be more than 60 or 70 years..."

"Looks can fool the youth of eyes, darling." He stood from his log and got closer to me, and sat down, looking deep into my eyes. "Look into my eyes, see if you see me as the 60 or 70 years or if you see something more..."

I looked into his eyes, and found myself getting closer to him, as I saw the life in him. I could feel my heart beat as I became quite surprised about what I was seeing.

"How old are you?" I asked without even thinking.

"See, you're learning something already. Come with me, and you'll have your answers. But I guarantee, with every answer you receive you'll have 2 or 3 more. And that will never cease, and you'll learn in time, that you won't want it too. The answers aren't what is important in life, it's the questions that spur you on."
"Where are we going?" It had been several hours since we started our walk, and as far as I could see there was still nothing there.

"To my home." He looked over at me and pointed up to the top of a mountain nearby.

"Why would you build your house up there?"

"I wouldn't, but thought it'd be funny to see your reaction." He gave me another smile. "We're close now."

He suddenly walked straight off the road and into the forest, as we exited the forest I saw a vast lake, and in the middle of the lake was a small cabin.

"And how do we get to that?"

"You just have to have faith." He stated as he started walking straight for the lake. His feet touched the water and then he was walking across it.

"I don't think faith could let me do that." I walked up to the lakes edge and looked down, realizing that there were stones that he was walking across. "That's not faith, those are stones."

"Half a dozen of one, six of another." I found myself starting to be entranced by his charm and his humour.

"So, you haven't answered my question."

"Which question is that young lady? You have asked many."

"How old are you?"

"I am over a thousand years old. You start to lose track after a while." he got to the door, and opened it up. As we walked in, immediately the decor caught my attention. He had something from every country, from all different time periods. It was better than any museum that I had been too.

"You expect me to believe that you are over a thousand years of age?" I started to walk around the cabin, and looking at all the things. "Can you prove it?"

"Can you prove that you are 132 years of age?"

"I suppose I don't have proof, but I can give you my birth name."

"I'm sure you could, it wasn't that long ago." He took a seat in a rocker that looked to be hand carved and picked up a piece of ebony and began carving it. "After 1,000 years, you forget your original name. You even start to forget the names you've used. As I'm sure you've found out, it's impossible to stay in one place for any long amount of time. When you don't age like everyone else, they all become suspicious of you. That's why I came here. The natives know me as 'The Ancient one' I like it. They stay out of my business, I trade with them, and they in turn leave me alone. But you, I think you enjoy being with people still. I wish I still felt that way. It seems as time goes by, I continue to find out that people are the same, just recycled from their parents." He laughed sadly as he continued to carve out the piece of ebony in his hand.

"So, you don't remember your name?"

"I might, but does it matter? What is really in a name?"

"Quoting Romeo and Juliet huh?"

"Am I? Or was he quoting me? Something to think about isn't it."

I stopped and started to think about the possibilities, and then something hit me for the first time.

"So, as people who live for a long time, we have the ability to change what history will be, and see it change before us."

"Or..." He stopped carving for a second and looked into my eyes. "You have the choice to mind your own business, stay out of the world affairs, and hope for the best. It really is your choice though."

January 20th 1650, London England

Have you ever just laid there in bed in that space between sleep, and being awake. The time when your mind seems to be completely clear of everything? At that point, you have all the answers to all of the questions you could ever ask yourself, but they quickly fade as you begin to wake up, and fade faster when someone knocks at your door.

I was woken quickly as the somewhat loud knock came at my hotel door.

"Good morning, Ma'am. I didn't knock you up did I?" The young woman stood with a handful of towels and had a beautiful smile on her face, a smile that made it so you couldn't be mad at her.

"No, not at all. I was just ... resting my eyes." I smiled at her and took a towel.

"I was told to ask if you would like breakfast served here or if you would be joining us downstairs."

I thought about it for a moment, and decided that eating alone wouldn't do me any good. "I think I'd prefer to join you downstairs."

The girl looked at me oddly and then seemed to shake it off. "Out of curiosity Ma'am, where are you from? Your accent suggests so many places all at the same time."

I smiled at her. "I was born and raised here in London, but have been travelling the world for some time." Suddenly it hit me. My statement made no sense, according to how old I looked, but I had already said it and wasn't about to say anything different.

"Well Ma'am, I would be glad to see you downstairs whenever you get a moment." She looked at me strangely but then just walked away. I wanted to beat my head against the door as I shut it. It was then that it hit me; I couldn't tell anyone all the places I had travelled. For just the time it took to do the travelling would make me at least 50 years of age. That's not including any time that I had spent in, any of the places. I took the time to wash up and made my way down to the small diner in the hotel. The only people there seemed to be the staff of the hotel. I took my seat and the same girl walked up to me.

"What could I get for you, Ma'am?"

"Please, call me Elizabeth."

"Yes Ma'am... I mean Elizabeth. What would be your pleasure this morning?"

"I'll take some grits and cream please."

"Anything else for you, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, a name, that I can call you."

"Ah.. My deepest apologies. You may call me Mary, its short for my name."

"Thank you, Mary." Something about this girl seemed different, almost as if she was looking into my very soul. Perhaps she was, maybe she knew something that no one else knew. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was definitely going to have to spend some time with her.

April 3rd 2010 1:30am Top of Sears Tower, Roof Access

There's something about the times when you can lie down, look up at a beautiful dark sky and let your mind wonder freely. Those are the times that I think most don't really make time for. It's not that they wouldn't enjoy it, or even that they think they wouldn't enjoy it. It's the fact that they don't have the time to enjoy it, at least not today. A few hundred years ago they really knew how to enjoy the special things in life. There were some things that I have to admit were wrong with the "old west" but for the most part they had a lot of things right.

Back then you could lie out under a night sky, in the middle of nowhere and just empty your mind of everything. Nothing in the world was going any faster than you at that moment. In fact all things seemed to just pause as you drifted into a deep sleep.

The same can be done today, but it takes the want and drive to do it, instead of the easy going life that I had back then. The past several years has taught me lessons that I don't know if I had ever learned before, and if I had, I must have forgotten them. The biggest thing I've learned is that no matter how fast the world goes around you, you can always take a time out. I'm not talking about the kind of time out you'd give a child in today’s world. Many people think that time travelling is a stupid idea, however when you think about it, we are all time travellers, and for the most part, it depends upon each of us to decide how fast, or slow, that time goes. When I look down upon the city that I'm living in, I watch as people fly by in their automobiles, and live their lives in a fast forward mode. As if they have no time to waste on anything in this world except their own lives. Perhaps it's living over 500 years that has made me appreciate how fast time goes; maybe it's the loss of that much time that makes me want to take it slower now. But everyone I'm looking down at now only live 70 or 80 years, and yet most of them waste 90% of that on what amounts to be nothing.

January 20th 1660, London England 6am

The soft tapping came at my door at the same time it had been for the past ten years.

"Please, come in Mary." I looked up from my writings as the now 19 year old girl walked into my room. For the past 10 years I had grown quite close to her, and she to me. My room was a cosy little place now. I had made it my own, with the permissions of the owners of the small bed and breakfast.

"Elizabeth, will you be joining us for breakfast this morning?"

"Of course I will be Mary, give me a few moments." Mary smiled and walked over to me, picking up the brush lying on my table and began to brush my hair.

"You know, out of all the years I've known you, not one thing about you has changed." Mary continued to brush through my hair.

"Ah, but you have changed much in comparison. Is that what you are trying to get at?"

"Well, yes actually. What keeps you looking so young?"

"It's a secret." I smiled at her as I finished the letter I was writing and put down the quill. "Are we ready for breakfast?"

"Yes, I believe so." Mary put down my brush and then walked with me out of the door.

"I'm going to have to leave soon." I said as I began to walk down the stairs.

"Where will you be going?"

"I will be heading back to the new land. I wish to explore more of it." Mary's footsteps began to quicken as they came after me.

"When will you be leaving?" She asked as she continued right behind me, almost on top of my own feet.

"I was thinking of going tomorrow." I stopped and sat down at the table, and Mary quickly sat beside me.

"I will miss you, Ma’am." she said softly so that the others could not hear her.

"Well, actually, I was wondering if you wanted to join me. It's a dangerous trip, and isn't much fun. But I believe I could take good care of you, and seeing that you are an orphan, you have no one to tell you that you cannot go with me." Mary's eyes lit up like the sun coming over the ocean on a cloudless sky. The blue reflections of her beautiful eyes and her mouth hanging open in disbelief. I reached up and softly pushed her mouth shut. "Does that mean you'd like to come with me?"

"I would love to, but I really can't afford..."

"Don't worry about the money. I don't want to leave you; You're the best friend I've had in all these years, and I can't imagine another person I'm willing to spend that much time with. Besides, I want you to see some of the world. I think you'll really enjoy it, and you're young enough to get the most out of it."

Mary suddenly grabbed me around my shoulders and hugged me close. "Yes, I would love to go with you."

"Then you should go get everything ready, and let the owner know that you will be leaving with me. I informed them of my decision a couple weeks ago, paid off all your debt and they have no problem with letting you go with me."