February 2010 Archives

We are primed for pattern recognition.  We see shapes and meanings in everything.  Guess it had an evolutionary advantage at some point.  We are always creating symbols.  Our brains are hardwired for language.  Our eyes are made to notice faces.  Forever seeing the Man in the Moon.

I wonder, sometimes, if almost everything that we experience is a story that we make up and tell ourselves.  It's like we can't stop trying to find meaning in things.  Toss a seven three times and you are on a roll.  Be born at a certain point, on a calendar that you have chosen to believe in, and you are a Sagittarius.  Make a wish on a falling star and...

Maybe all the stories soothe the fear that nothing means anything.  

I lost one of the soles of my flip-flops last Summer.  It peeled away and fell off.  I've still been wearing them, though.  One is thinner than the other.  Kind of tough on the feet.  The strap on the right one broke a few moments ago.  I don't know if I can wear them anymore, now.  I mean, maybe I could duct tape it or something, but...

Maybe all those stories reveal the fact that everything means...everything.

I sometimes feel that life is saturated with meaning.  Every breeze, each drop of rain.  The song on the radio.  A random movie.  The falling white erasing everything, again, outside.  Maybe we recognize patterns because patters are all around us.  Inside us.  Are us.

Yesterday, on a whim, I bought a song from iTunes that I once heard playing at work.  On the early morning shift that ended my deepest relationship so far.  The song is playing, now.  Tonight, I watched a movie that Netflix recommended to me.  It was, at its core, about love and the hell of loss.  As I was walking to this desk, in my bedroom, my Corona flip-flop broke.

It's broken.

I don't know what is true.  Whether nothing has meaning and that we are just whistling in the graveyard to calm our fears -- or that meaning is woven into the very fabric of our being.  What I do know is this:

The song is, "Broken" by Seether (Featuring Amy Lee).

The movie was, Lo.

And that Amy bought me the Corona flip-fops.

Gabby the cat is sitting next to me in the dining room, nagging for some of my supper.  I don't think she realizes that I'm having lentil soup.  I doubt that entrée is very high on the feline "must have" list.  (Shows you what I know; she seemed to like the sample I gave her.  Who knew?)

One thing about Winter: the water from the tap is sweet and icy-cold.  Time for a third glass.  I think I get a little dehydrated sometimes, at work.

I'm tired.

Dinner is done.  Still have James in my head, singing that melancholy tune.  Guess I could sleep now, but I'm going to stay up for a little bit more.  No real reason.

 

This day started with a pretty but sad dream, filled with obvious symbolism that I did not catch until later.  Tuesday unraveled from there.  Moments, blurring out like ink in water.  Surreal -- then gone.  Coming home, after work, I parked in the white driveway.  Shutting off the engine made everything deeply quiet.  For a time, I watched the snow fall and melt into silver on my windshield.

I miss her.  I know it doesn't matter.  Maybe it does matter.  Maybe everything does.  Or nothing does.  Just tired, and buzzed.  No weight or shadow to that either.  Like all of the white, out there: it will melt away and be gone, to memory only.

There will be flowers here, eventually.

I don't want to think.  I don't want to see.  Sleep's deepest black is the sweetest part.  Shock: a white river, that swirls, blasts and tumbles.  Dashed up upon these shores; awake for now.  I don't want to understand this.  To have my injuries unveiled.  These truths rewrite a past that I hold to like a drowning man.  Time is no help: an hour, a month, the broken back of a year.  The torrent tosses yesterday, fresh, onto now.  Better to look away.  I am so weary.  Feel it tug at my ankles, pulling me back.  Rough mercy.  Close my eyes -- and hope for fairer shores.

I miss you, every day.