"Rope!" cried Sam, talking wildly to himself in his excitement and relief. "Well, if I don't deserve to be hung on the end of one as a warning to numbskulls! You're nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee: that's what the Gaffer said to me often enough, it being a word of his. Rope!" -Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The rope is about twenty feet long, blue and white candy cane striped. Heavy-duty enough for any job I will ever use it for and then some, it now hangs from a shelf bracket in my room. I looks rather out of place and forlorn in my bedroom. Somehow the rope doesn't seem quite right with the rest of my room. Filled with piles of books, pictures of proms and friends, my laptop computer, and art supplies, my room seems to rebell against the rope hanging in it.
I received the length of rope as a graduation present along with the previous quote from a friend of mine. The quote, handwritten by my friend, hangs in my room, ready to be shown to those that are baffled by the rope. I don't really say much. I show them the quote, explaining that it was a graduation present. Somehow the rope's meaning to me can't be described in words. How does one go about explaining something they only feel? I usually receive a weird smile or grin, as we quickly move on to something else.
It was the most creative graduation present I recieved. Simple and practical, it also holds a lot of meaning. It is a constant reminder of his friendship and a link to our shared joy of Tolkien. I also see it as a symbol that all my friends, him include, are there when I need them, ready to toss me that length of 'rope' and pull me out of the whirlpools of life. The rope looking so out of place in my room, also represents all those times that I too have felt out of place and will again feel out of place in life. We will not all end up doing what we plan on doing with our lives. The rope did not choose it's location, just as I didn't choose it, but here we are, together for life. Life is full of examples of chance, luck, and fate.
We can not all be lengths of rope used to tie up a boat. Some of use must be the ropes that sit in the trunk of a car for years, just incase the car ends up in the ditch on an icy day. Some of us must be that rope that is hung on a nail in the garage, waiting for the various and sundry tasks it will preform. Other will used to hang a tire swing in an old oak tree. Some of use will be that rope used year after year as a family moves time and time again. Others worse off, will end up as the length of rope used to hang a person in an act of hatred. Life is not always pretty. Life is not always what we expect. We do not always get to choose what becomes of the circumstances surrounding our life. It is our job in life to be the best piece of rope we can be. Whatever our path in life, we must make sure to never come unravelled, unwound. We must make the best of whatever our job in life may be.
I'm not really sure if I see the rope the same way my friend saw it to me when he gave it to me. Perhaps he just thought of the practical uses for a rope, or saw it as an interesting gift. But maybe that is the beauty of the gift, that it can mean so many different things to so many different people.
As I leave for college in the fall, the rope will find its way to a box and move with me. It will again hang in a location not typical of rope and will again bring strange looks and questions. The rope is not for other people, though. It is for me, a constant reminder of all the rope means to me.
If anyone can give me a page number, etc. for the quote above I would really appreciate it. Thanks!