“And I stood there, lost, because as I saw it now everything had fallen into place again and everything seemed natural…Yet, even now, every time (often) that I find I don’t understand something, then, instinctively, I’m filled with the hope that perhaps this will be my moment again, perhaps, once again I shall understand nothing, I shall grasp that other knowledge, found and lost in an instant.”

Excerpt from “The Flash” by Italo Calvino

Each moment is a new day depending on when you choose to begin

It wasn’t always about rhythm, as monotonous as it may come.  It used to be about the crisp sound of a piece of paper crinkling in the hands of a confused artist who was unimpressed by his free formed thought.

I used to paint a picture sketched with lines lacking concrete definition.  But in summer heat, humidity controls all weights of expression. 

The conflict lies in thought, therefore, where harmony and dissonance have lived dormant for years.  But one was awakened by the other and lyricism was forced into all forms of the written word.

You see, it has always been about the morning hours.  The hours when the silent refuse to seep - When dreams are eyes wide open and thoughts crash against the horizon as a canvas loses room to breathe. 

The thing is that once the paintbrush is lifted and once the colors have dried, there’s no room left for interpretation. 

Yet in years to come, it becomes so obvious what all was implied.

And once again the symmetry has slithered its way onto the pages.  Tiptoeing silently for hour upon hour.  And as it approaches each ticking second on the clock, new days begin.

A Difference

Oftentimes, I feel a certain way and wonder why others would ever put me in such a position, creating such sentiment within me.  Then I’m forced to stand back and realize that the only person who can make me feel anything at all is myself. 

We blame others for pushing negativity onto us instead of blaming ourselves for allowing the negativity to control our own perception of things.  Things, then, would be undefined and unfocused emotions that mean nothing in essence.  For what is heartache or happiness but a passerby when times are rough or simple?

…

I’ve been thinking long lately about the different moments I’ve let consume me in years and days past.  Anger, specifically towards those I cannot change but who have changed me.  I like to believe I was different once, as we all were.  And in a desperate attempt to find my childlike innocence I think back to purity before I knew otherwise.  I like to think back.  I was different then.

Observations, I’ve always made.  But opinion has come and changed with time.  Again, forced to ponder what once went into one ear and out the other. 

You see, nothing ever makes sense when I put thought into words.  I preach with no poise and pointlessly continue provoking my few patrons. 

Still there is something to be said about such confusion. 

…

Above me there are two bees creating a hive on my porch.  I have watched them for two days now.  Once there was one and now there are two.  And in that time something has changed.  Not them.  They seem to sleep at night as, too, I should be. 

And the wind, too, has fortified and calmed and significantly fortified within the last few hours as I sit here.  I’m noticing the branches of the bowing tree in front of me wave after days of stillness, it would seem.  The lights that highlight its leaves somehow weave in and out vibrancy where it may not have otherwise belonged.  But who am I to presume such bold presumptions?

So I sit and wait as always, for change once again to consume me.  Undisturbed by the thoughtlessness.  Released of emotions that neither control me nor I control.  And I am different now.  Unchanged.  Changing, as always.

I am hindu.  I believe in beauty.

It is without thought and with feelings that I have reached this state.

And as I attempt to think, I lose my status.

I am of no hierarchy.  I am equal to the ground on which I walk.

With each new endeavor, I learn something new. 

I gain from each past and present experience.  I do not dwell in either or.

I am now, and it is gone. 

gdAe

Perfection of pitch was never my gift.  Yet to this day the sound of that bold note, its vibrations, its hollow tone, resonates, creating rhythm within my bloodstream.  I recall it, when all others become long lost memories.  And I am alive once again.

I miss the strings competing against one another.  The acoustics on the amateurs platform.  I remember the buzzing and the dissonance.  The humming of the masterpieces.

I was hidden between such talent and I was harmonious.  At the time, it was uncomforting.  Today, I miss the feeling of my little childhood fear.

Nancy

Nancy was the cow that lived behind our local Home Depot.  A black, bony creature with a heart of the purest of golds.  Most times, we’d drive behind the warehouse and see the beautiful yogi sitting alone under the one cylindrical piece of shelter she never claimed.  An escape from the heat of another Texas summer.  Other times, she’d be laying in the muddy water between infrastructure and a cloudless afternoon.

It was a family friend who first found her, uncomplaining in her lonely hunger.  Soon enough, mom and I and my sister, too, would go feed her when we were nearby.

When she heard the honk of our car, she’d come running in our direction.  We’d feed her through the wired fence - she preferred being hand-fed to the food that slipped from our palms and onto the ground.  Nancy was just a baby.

One day we drove behind the depot, like always, but Nancy didn’t come running.  She was sitting and watching us.  We called her name out.  Her eyes told me she had not forgotten us.  Slowly, she got up.  Hobbled over.

Nancy was wounded.  Shimmering, crusty blood was revealed by the starchy sun as we gazed upon her leg.

We never found out how it happened.  She never seemed to fully heal.

It was a short time I knew Nancy.  We did not meet as often as I would have liked.  Between school and a long journey, it was difficult to keep in touch.  Upon my next return, I came to know Nancy no longer lived in her humble confines.

I don’t know when or why they replaced her, but I will miss my friend.