Some Vague But Vibrant Visions.

I am sitting, sinking, soaked in the definitions of distances, those dire miles measured out in tense timetables. There is a shaky silence echoing, evasive, in my head and I cannot catch it, cannot make it something of substance. I saw a city today, a city I rarely see, and I wandered through it, inch by inch, inhaling it's pace. I swam through the movement of all the motionless things. I had no real destination- only a vague idea of one, a loose list of numbered, lettered streets, littered with things I couldn't afford to care to look at. I wished you were there. I thought of your pace, of the way you hold your shoulders when you walk. The city rose up around me- the buildings broad and bright- bustling with business in the afternoon light. I thought in words rarely- in motions and movement, in fast-moving footsteps. I thought in the sounds my feet made on the ground, in the reflection of the sun on the stylish glasses of the people walking past.
The sun shone starkly, stretching out far beyond the clouds which covered it, breaking brightly through those bubbly bunches. The air was cool and the breeze brushed the back of my neck. I moved briskly, beaming beneath the busy sky, the busy streets. People hustled past me, their destinations decisively designated, delegated. They are so deliberate, their demeanor poised and perfect, precocious. And I am slumped forward fading into the far away sound of my footsteps. I am observing the city sky, the sidewalks, strangers.

I fell asleep on the train and I dreamed of a distant landscape layered with all types of terrain. A vast ocean sunk straight out into a dense desert which shifted swiftly into an Antarctic ice patch. And I walked through each one, alone, unafraid. I expected something, some manner of movement, some striking season to overtake the land. They sky suddenly broke and a hard but scattered rain soaked the landscape only in spots. I saw someone standing far off in the distance. He was looking out toward the horizon, hands on hips, searching. And he looked down in front of him in disbelief and I moved toward him but never got any closer.

My thoughts were vibrant and I could taste them in the back of my throat. I was suddenly standing by him and his eyes glowed a golden green, like moss, and I reached out to touch him. He blinked and his eyes changed color. I thought of all the distance I had traveled. I didn't know how I had traversed such tumultuous terrain. An then the sky dimmed and I was on a boat. It was a steamliner and I could stare out into the shining sea. I saw a storm ahead but wasn't scared. I clutched an anonymous letter in my fist. I searched through oddly lit rooms for evidence of it's author. Sometimes the sun shone through the windows and sometimes I thought I could see the moon and stars.

This is all a story.

"We all play at existing without thinking about it- the most advanced of us thinking only about thinking- under the vast stillness of the stars." So says Pessoa. I wish I wrote more about living and less about thinking about living. The people we write live; they see their lives, they feel them. But, in order to see things you must see them through someone's eyes. I suppose it is just more difficult to see things from someone else's eyes and therefore more challenging.

The train is shaking my seat; I am thinking about thinking, thinking about writing, thinking about all the things bobbing about on the brink of my written thoughts. I am hiding something from myself. Some wealth of words, some wordless wisdom only felt in feelings and only escaping on the edges of these vague but vibrant visions.