rediscovered words: from 2002

it seems like it has been winter for a while now. but it hardly happened this year. the snow has melted except for the places in shadows. i slip on half melted ice when stepping out the front door of my apartment. i have things to do, like everyone living. nothing remarkable in that. i get in my car and drive. listening to npr because of the soft radio voices. i emulate the inflections and tones, like anyone else would sing along in their car. occasionally i do that too. driving at dusk has a calming affect on me. something about the sweeping haze and balmy glow of lights in the city. and the thought that somewhere darkness falls without regard for commotion with only the flashing red, green, blue lights from the distant planes above. looking up, from my point of view they look so tiny and fragile, paper planes held up by a slight puff of air. the occupants look down and see geometric shapes, flecks like dusts that could be swept away. it seems like another world. But the difference is only perceptual. the people on the planes above are drawn to the windows, to look below for any sign of the familiar. the church steeple, the water tower, the squared off neighborhood where they live bring them back to a time and place. cars and buildings, images fade in and out of view, these things only hold their attention a short while, before their eyes rest on clouds, and the horizon that is close and growing closer. a sight only someone at those heights could witness. it appears to be another world. i go on in my mind, reading road signs, noticing my surroundings, finding myself in relation to the past and the present. a building, a word, a car on the road beside me all spark a memory. I find myself involuntarily remembering quick instances of the past like the view from a plane, images fading in and out of sight. this meeting of the past and present runs through me without thought or control, it is the whole of me that has been present since my earliest memory. even more, there is an innate urge that comes from living and experience to consciously reach back for the familiar, the instances, people and places that brought me here. here, driving at dusk, I can recall a beautiful sunset from two years ago, still I have one before me and it is disappearing in haste. I take the time to fix my eyes on the swirling clouds, and melting colors glinting off my windshield. It almost feels like another world, but I know from experience, that it is the same.


"how beautiful the moon is tonight.
the moon is fascinating, isn't it?
its shape never changes
yet it looks different depending
on the angle of the light."
-from the film afterlife