Shh... be quiet: The settling...

When I was a kid I loved snow globes. The perfect moment, a frozen scene situated on a tiny platflorm replete with snow or glittering rain. Shake the globe and the moment is clouded with dizzying specks of debris and then slowly the settling. Flurry by falling flurry the whirlwind of activity is restored to a quiet calm and the perfect moment is crystal clear in its watery safe.

The following text is from Haruki Murakami's novel "Kafka on the Shore."

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

Snow globes and sandstorms. This has been my life over the past several months. My seemingly perfect scene, the quiet frozen moments of my days, first blanketed by winter snow storms and then engulfed in spring and summer rains. But it wasn't just the weather that changed... Something in me shook free, was stirred and tossed out of place or thrown into another path, an unfamiliar place. I am on a narrow mountain pass in southern France, shifting gears with the clutch and break. Terrified at the precariousness of dancing on the unguarded edge where gravel meets the treeline. He is holding onto the side of the door. His eyes shut tight. I am stepping on a moving sidewalk that carries me through a tunnel of neon lights, the latest in airport design. I do this three times. The first time I am standing behind a girl who starts sobbing in line. She calls to her mother and then her lover. They take turns pressing their faces against the security line plexiglass. Whisperering tearful French goodbye's, they leave salty imprints of breath and lips on the glass. The second time I am waiting in line, AirFrance has a terminal delay. "Terminal delay" I think, this is not a coincidence. The third time is the last. I leave him at the gate, watching him walk away before I make it halfway up the line. Numb and resigned I board the plane.

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. I am here now. Life in the upper midwest. We are on the cusp of Winter coming on too soon, too strong. There is a quiet anticipation building. My clothes whip around my body, loose and failing to provide protecton against the bullish wind rushing out of the gate. "It looks like snow!" but it is just falling leaves. "It sounds like rain" but it is the sound of dry leaves as they tumble across the concrete. I am here now, in this scene. The perfect and imperfect moments come and go with the steady predicament of constancy. I am walking on a path with a stranger at my heels. I step out of the way and let him pass. I am sitting in a parking lot, the sea of parked cars silent and some sputtering. There is a commotion, a sudden quickening and then the motion of the day softens and retreats. I am alone and there is the settling.