nothing at all
An entire city holding its breath in unison so as not to disrupt the slow descent of sunlight mixed with beauty in the west. And with little more thought we exhale, but slowly so as not to let anyone else know what we were doing. It matters little though as everyone is guilty of the same thing and feeling a shame that is futile but somehow commendable. There is no right and wrong in the morning though. Not the dead of morning, when no one is around and you have the exact opposite feeling as the sense of people watching you. Because no one is watching you and the air is a tiny bit sweeter for that fact, and a tiny bit cleaner and more honest. Full of promise, not yet ruined.
And so I attempt to capture as much as is possible in a moment. But it is not morning but rather late afternoon and the air is heavy with humidity from the summer rains that just passed through the city. The city with the millions of people and countless more secrets that just paused in unison, as the dying beams of sunlight broke through the dissipating clouds and cast an eerie yellow orange-ish glow over the streets and sidewalks not cast in shadow from the boulevards lined with massive metal structures.
It was in this moment, holding my breath with thousands around me did I comprehend the idea of instantaneous and unsurpassable beauty. It was not so much the image itself but the transient nature of something existing so perfectly and moving on with no cares or worries. So I thought of all the beautiful women in the world and realized that there is at least one, perhaps more, but at least one who I will never have the privelage of meeting. And it made me both sad and happy; to realize the sorrow and joy that this world possesses but does not necessarily ration out. Had I been walking another five minutes I would have missed the chance to be awed. I could however, have been stepping into a shop to dry off a moment and meet my future wife. It’s the uncertainty, the not knowing who, what, when, and where that both scares me to death and fills me with a reserve of joy that I can hardly do more to control it than break down and cry.
And now there is darkness, and the multitudes around me are no longer stagnant but rushing to and fro with the intensity of purpose that is so often lacking in modern life. The feeling I am currently void of. It’s a terrible feeling to see something so stunning, and make so great a realization, only to have nobody to rush off and tell. No one holding your hand and watching with you, silent so as not to disturb the tranquillity of the moment, of which there will surely be a million more, but none with the same significance to the same people. Each acting as a separate dream that can truly only be experienced by one person but can be loosely translated into a garbled version of the way things happened, or you think they happened, or are by this point only made up and glorified by the translator. A sad state of affairs when one can’t be honest with oneself enough to be honest with others. But in a moment that possesses so much beauty and promise to see it is enough to disregard all words used to describe, and it becomes a shared memory, considerably stronger as it can be tested against more than one account.
But where is the fun in living where the rules can be so easily restricted. And so I pass on through the serpentine streets and alleys, stalking those whose conception of reality are based solely on misery and sorrow so I can let them know how much more there is. How many individual moments can be produced outside of human intervention. That with all of the beauty and misery human beings inflict on themselves there are still certain moments that cannot be manufactured or tainted by those who will it to be. Mostly, that there is some semblance of hope. Not necessarily that good shall prevail over evil, but that no matter how much evil exists, it will never be impossible to completely kill out the good. For a certain portion of it is still thankfully out of our reach.
And so I attempt to capture as much as is possible in a moment. But it is not morning but rather late afternoon and the air is heavy with humidity from the summer rains that just passed through the city. The city with the millions of people and countless more secrets that just paused in unison, as the dying beams of sunlight broke through the dissipating clouds and cast an eerie yellow orange-ish glow over the streets and sidewalks not cast in shadow from the boulevards lined with massive metal structures.
It was in this moment, holding my breath with thousands around me did I comprehend the idea of instantaneous and unsurpassable beauty. It was not so much the image itself but the transient nature of something existing so perfectly and moving on with no cares or worries. So I thought of all the beautiful women in the world and realized that there is at least one, perhaps more, but at least one who I will never have the privelage of meeting. And it made me both sad and happy; to realize the sorrow and joy that this world possesses but does not necessarily ration out. Had I been walking another five minutes I would have missed the chance to be awed. I could however, have been stepping into a shop to dry off a moment and meet my future wife. It’s the uncertainty, the not knowing who, what, when, and where that both scares me to death and fills me with a reserve of joy that I can hardly do more to control it than break down and cry.
And now there is darkness, and the multitudes around me are no longer stagnant but rushing to and fro with the intensity of purpose that is so often lacking in modern life. The feeling I am currently void of. It’s a terrible feeling to see something so stunning, and make so great a realization, only to have nobody to rush off and tell. No one holding your hand and watching with you, silent so as not to disturb the tranquillity of the moment, of which there will surely be a million more, but none with the same significance to the same people. Each acting as a separate dream that can truly only be experienced by one person but can be loosely translated into a garbled version of the way things happened, or you think they happened, or are by this point only made up and glorified by the translator. A sad state of affairs when one can’t be honest with oneself enough to be honest with others. But in a moment that possesses so much beauty and promise to see it is enough to disregard all words used to describe, and it becomes a shared memory, considerably stronger as it can be tested against more than one account.
But where is the fun in living where the rules can be so easily restricted. And so I pass on through the serpentine streets and alleys, stalking those whose conception of reality are based solely on misery and sorrow so I can let them know how much more there is. How many individual moments can be produced outside of human intervention. That with all of the beauty and misery human beings inflict on themselves there are still certain moments that cannot be manufactured or tainted by those who will it to be. Mostly, that there is some semblance of hope. Not necessarily that good shall prevail over evil, but that no matter how much evil exists, it will never be impossible to completely kill out the good. For a certain portion of it is still thankfully out of our reach.