Violet Rays
At this point, after months of early mornings, late nights, all-nighters, and daily multiple shifts in different time zones, my body has loosened itself from the moorings of a traditional circadian rhythm. Times are numbers. I rest when I can and stay awake when I can't.
Last night was a full night of sleep despite waking up before 04:00. Pre-dawn is a perfect time for housekeeping, and I finish my errands just in time to walk outside under a stunning sky of soft violet waves. For only a few minutes, everything is a gradient of purple.
In this fleeting velvet world, I can believe in the concept of potentialities.
~ ~
I don't want to place too much importance on the past three days. Especially since the events held within three-day increments is now the new work-day shift of my current occupation. I've gained friendly acquaintances with hundreds of people. Only a few times have I found myself relating to someone on those rotations on a deeper level, revealing and reliving the past volumes of my life in a way usually reserved for romantic partners and close, lifelong friends.
But these moments within a fleeting, fuchsia sky portend a possible expansion of my identity with others.
Could this mark the formation of a new schema of relationships with others? To form a deep connection with someone who will never become a romantic partner but is suddenly more influential than a good friend?
How long does it take for two humans to establish some psychological synchronization on a quantum level?
This violet day might have felt like a "morning after" if it weren't for the fact that she and I live in the same city, merely a few blocks away. There's a potential for continuation that was previously unavailable during my time in New England. Now, working from my hometown, the baseline of deep connection can expand beyond the confines of work duties.
This person is now a Variable in what was once a city of constants. I wonder how she's recovering from the three-day shift. I'm subject to a clear vision of Variable going about her home routines, eating breakfast, starting laundry, the same activities as before but now altered by a purple hue. She's probably wondering the same thoughts about me, about how I'm recovering from the rotation, and then imagining my activities based on the persona she's known over the past three days. My figure and proximity becomes a new complication in what was once normalcy. Like the surface of a compressed stone, we share a new plane of reflection upon our respective lives.
These are the musings I observe under a violet sky. A natural progression of tidal forces generated by days spent side-by-side, propelled forward. I tell myself to not even think these thoughts. But I also don't want to let a potential friendship die. In this world of potentialities, the sunrise could easily turn into a sudden, fiery sunset, or revert to a cold, deep blue night. Where's the balance between letting connections naturally develop while remaining a contributing agent?
That's exactly when I receive a message from Variable, asking how I'm doing. She invites me out tonight to drinks and dinner with a friend.
~ ~
While exploring the space of our appointed meeting location, I receive a call. Variable and her friend have happened upon a Día de Muertos celebration. On the way to this new destination, I placate the similarities and coincidences of meeting another [new-schema] friend, some four or five years ago; a connection out of time and place but anchored enough in reality to alter the trajectory of my life. They even live in the same mid-rise without railings, hundreds of feet above the night. That previous intersection of timelessness and space marked a dramatic shift in my life. Is this, now, a similar trajectory of weightlessness and abandonment?
Along the way, I receive compliments on my shirt from strangers. But my wardrobe is mostly shirts with skeletal figures. Today just happens to align with the world's seasonal fascination with the dead.
The three of us meet among the crowds of living and the living-playing-dead. Horns blare from speakers. Families laugh and dance. This is a night beyond restrictions and assumptions, fueled by tostadas, churros, and endless wells of tequila.
There are representations of the dead, dancing on stilts. They saunter away into the night to make way for the main event. Even though there's a stage for a troupe of dancers, the young performers spill out upon the concrete, washing among us and pulling back, like a beckoning undertow toward a festive oblivion without horizons, where water and night combine.
The children dance a foreign routine. The girls spin and let the colors of their dresses blossom. The boys shimmy with their hands behind their back, orbiting their partners in tight, coordinated paths. At some unknown interval of time, the boys all turn toward the audience, kick one knee up, and clap their hands together. They switch knees and clap again. Except, they don't clap hands. They clang together long metallic sheaths that echo with loud menace.
"Are they dancing with knives," she asks in wonder.
We'd taken to each other's side in the crowd.
"Yes. Knives." I reply, skeptically. "...or spatulas. Either one can be deadly."
We both watch the procession for a few moments, accumulating more information from the scene before us.
At the same time, we exclaim, "Machetes!"
I mutter, "Holy shit."
~ ~
As the night deepens, she slips into the background of the new burgeoning friendship between myself and the third companion, her friend.
At various points of volleyed wits, he turns to Variable and says, "I like him. Let's keep him." She smiles and nods.
I think the same about him, especially since he's such a fascinating person with a rich background. He even reminds me of my father's best friend, a figure of warmth and humor who's developed into the role of an uncle over the past four decades.
This new friend quips about his diminutive height, which enhances the comedic potential between us; my own communally-agreed-upon status as someone "tall" makes us a quintessential odd couple.
The Muertos celebration ends, prompting the need for a new venue.
As the three of us cross a busy intersection, the friend floats a proposal in the form of a joke.
"What if we told people we were a thruple, and then we actually do become one?"
There's a bit of silence.
He continues, "Like tonight?"
Variable asks about the definition of a thruple. She genuinely hadn't heard the term before and doesn't know how to respond.
After some consideration, she says, "I don't think anyone would believe us. Most people will just think you're our child."
~ ~
A few more hours, a few more drinks.
We're in a large space much like the mixed-use warehouse where I spent the past decade of my life. But this is someplace new among the familiar. An adjacent space for revelries and memories. All the while, I enjoy the company of Variable's friend while she withdraws and bears witness to a flourishing friendship.
In the moments before we depart, there's a last call at the bar, and her friend steps away to wash his hands. I return from the bar and take the chair next to her.
Suddenly, everything "fits" We'd spent the last three days side-by-side, quite literally attached to the hip. The previous configuration in this lounge had placed us across from each other; a red separated from a blue. But now we were sitting as we had during the majority of our previous three days. We're even leaning closer, over the bar chairs, since that distance is more akin to the shared space we've inhabited.
This is how the other sits comfortably in our minds: both leaning closer, looking forward, yet internally unlatching barricades and opening corridors that would normally remain obscured to anyone beyond ourselves. Blurring the barriers of personalities to cast the world in a new, soft hue.
Her friend returns but remains standing.
"What did I miss?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Smashing Pumpkins - Violet Rays
[Listen on youtube]
Smashing Pumpkins - Violet Rays
Faithless moors
Pulling up your oars
From rivers I have crossed
In magic, no heart's lost
And I'll leave with anyone this night
And I'll kiss anyone, tonight
Am I the only one you see?
Raised from the path of revelry
Spells fall, frail
Webs catching sail
In eternal eternities
Divine purpose, catching free
And I'll leave with anyone this night
And I'll kiss anyone, tonight
Am I the only one you see?
Seized from the wrath of revelry
Am I the only one you see?
Does love matter when love is the actor?
For what you are after, is me
Babe, don't leave me, please believe me
'cause I'm so easy to know
Am I the only one you see?
Raised from the path of revelry
Am I the only one you see?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last night was a full night of sleep despite waking up before 04:00. Pre-dawn is a perfect time for housekeeping, and I finish my errands just in time to walk outside under a stunning sky of soft violet waves. For only a few minutes, everything is a gradient of purple.
In this fleeting velvet world, I can believe in the concept of potentialities.
~ ~
I don't want to place too much importance on the past three days. Especially since the events held within three-day increments is now the new work-day shift of my current occupation. I've gained friendly acquaintances with hundreds of people. Only a few times have I found myself relating to someone on those rotations on a deeper level, revealing and reliving the past volumes of my life in a way usually reserved for romantic partners and close, lifelong friends.
But these moments within a fleeting, fuchsia sky portend a possible expansion of my identity with others.
Could this mark the formation of a new schema of relationships with others? To form a deep connection with someone who will never become a romantic partner but is suddenly more influential than a good friend?
How long does it take for two humans to establish some psychological synchronization on a quantum level?
This violet day might have felt like a "morning after" if it weren't for the fact that she and I live in the same city, merely a few blocks away. There's a potential for continuation that was previously unavailable during my time in New England. Now, working from my hometown, the baseline of deep connection can expand beyond the confines of work duties.
This person is now a Variable in what was once a city of constants. I wonder how she's recovering from the three-day shift. I'm subject to a clear vision of Variable going about her home routines, eating breakfast, starting laundry, the same activities as before but now altered by a purple hue. She's probably wondering the same thoughts about me, about how I'm recovering from the rotation, and then imagining my activities based on the persona she's known over the past three days. My figure and proximity becomes a new complication in what was once normalcy. Like the surface of a compressed stone, we share a new plane of reflection upon our respective lives.
These are the musings I observe under a violet sky. A natural progression of tidal forces generated by days spent side-by-side, propelled forward. I tell myself to not even think these thoughts. But I also don't want to let a potential friendship die. In this world of potentialities, the sunrise could easily turn into a sudden, fiery sunset, or revert to a cold, deep blue night. Where's the balance between letting connections naturally develop while remaining a contributing agent?
That's exactly when I receive a message from Variable, asking how I'm doing. She invites me out tonight to drinks and dinner with a friend.
~ ~
While exploring the space of our appointed meeting location, I receive a call. Variable and her friend have happened upon a Día de Muertos celebration. On the way to this new destination, I placate the similarities and coincidences of meeting another [new-schema] friend, some four or five years ago; a connection out of time and place but anchored enough in reality to alter the trajectory of my life. They even live in the same mid-rise without railings, hundreds of feet above the night. That previous intersection of timelessness and space marked a dramatic shift in my life. Is this, now, a similar trajectory of weightlessness and abandonment?
Along the way, I receive compliments on my shirt from strangers. But my wardrobe is mostly shirts with skeletal figures. Today just happens to align with the world's seasonal fascination with the dead.
The three of us meet among the crowds of living and the living-playing-dead. Horns blare from speakers. Families laugh and dance. This is a night beyond restrictions and assumptions, fueled by tostadas, churros, and endless wells of tequila.
There are representations of the dead, dancing on stilts. They saunter away into the night to make way for the main event. Even though there's a stage for a troupe of dancers, the young performers spill out upon the concrete, washing among us and pulling back, like a beckoning undertow toward a festive oblivion without horizons, where water and night combine.
The children dance a foreign routine. The girls spin and let the colors of their dresses blossom. The boys shimmy with their hands behind their back, orbiting their partners in tight, coordinated paths. At some unknown interval of time, the boys all turn toward the audience, kick one knee up, and clap their hands together. They switch knees and clap again. Except, they don't clap hands. They clang together long metallic sheaths that echo with loud menace.
"Are they dancing with knives," she asks in wonder.
We'd taken to each other's side in the crowd.
"Yes. Knives." I reply, skeptically. "...or spatulas. Either one can be deadly."
We both watch the procession for a few moments, accumulating more information from the scene before us.
At the same time, we exclaim, "Machetes!"
I mutter, "Holy shit."
~ ~
As the night deepens, she slips into the background of the new burgeoning friendship between myself and the third companion, her friend.
At various points of volleyed wits, he turns to Variable and says, "I like him. Let's keep him." She smiles and nods.
I think the same about him, especially since he's such a fascinating person with a rich background. He even reminds me of my father's best friend, a figure of warmth and humor who's developed into the role of an uncle over the past four decades.
This new friend quips about his diminutive height, which enhances the comedic potential between us; my own communally-agreed-upon status as someone "tall" makes us a quintessential odd couple.
The Muertos celebration ends, prompting the need for a new venue.
As the three of us cross a busy intersection, the friend floats a proposal in the form of a joke.
"What if we told people we were a thruple, and then we actually do become one?"
There's a bit of silence.
He continues, "Like tonight?"
Variable asks about the definition of a thruple. She genuinely hadn't heard the term before and doesn't know how to respond.
After some consideration, she says, "I don't think anyone would believe us. Most people will just think you're our child."
~ ~
A few more hours, a few more drinks.
We're in a large space much like the mixed-use warehouse where I spent the past decade of my life. But this is someplace new among the familiar. An adjacent space for revelries and memories. All the while, I enjoy the company of Variable's friend while she withdraws and bears witness to a flourishing friendship.
In the moments before we depart, there's a last call at the bar, and her friend steps away to wash his hands. I return from the bar and take the chair next to her.
Suddenly, everything "fits" We'd spent the last three days side-by-side, quite literally attached to the hip. The previous configuration in this lounge had placed us across from each other; a red separated from a blue. But now we were sitting as we had during the majority of our previous three days. We're even leaning closer, over the bar chairs, since that distance is more akin to the shared space we've inhabited.
This is how the other sits comfortably in our minds: both leaning closer, looking forward, yet internally unlatching barricades and opening corridors that would normally remain obscured to anyone beyond ourselves. Blurring the barriers of personalities to cast the world in a new, soft hue.
Her friend returns but remains standing.
"What did I miss?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Smashing Pumpkins - Violet Rays
[Listen on youtube]
Smashing Pumpkins - Violet Rays
Faithless moors
Pulling up your oars
From rivers I have crossed
In magic, no heart's lost
And I'll leave with anyone this night
And I'll kiss anyone, tonight
Am I the only one you see?
Raised from the path of revelry
Spells fall, frail
Webs catching sail
In eternal eternities
Divine purpose, catching free
And I'll leave with anyone this night
And I'll kiss anyone, tonight
Am I the only one you see?
Seized from the wrath of revelry
Am I the only one you see?
Does love matter when love is the actor?
For what you are after, is me
Babe, don't leave me, please believe me
'cause I'm so easy to know
Am I the only one you see?
Raised from the path of revelry
Am I the only one you see?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~