Obscured Clarity
Do you ever notice how the sun in Autumn casts strange shadows on everything and that even on the most beautiful of days, the world can seem so sad? I feel alive in these days, knowing that the cold darkness of winter is coming. Every morning, the sky brightens and deepens into dark shades of cobalt, making me feel like every moment spent inside is a moment wasted. Yet somehow, it still all seems so melancholic- as if the world has stood still for a moment in the dramatic pause before the inevitable approach of rain clouds.
I am reading too much, sleeping too little, and finding it hard to be in the company of anyone other than essential strangers for long periods of time. I don't know where this fierce desire to be alone with my thoughts is coming from, but it's making for many long nights and endless hours of walking through the city alone. I look at other people and envy the animated looks on their faces as they engage in mindless conversation or the blank stares that accompany the absence of thought. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one in the world that spends entire days spinning words and lines of prose in my head, trying to organize the mass of swirling thoughts that plague me into some kind of coherent response to the question 'What are you thinking about?' How I hate that question sometimes.
I sat with a 55 year-old man named David Monroe the other day on a bench in a tiny square somewhere in the city for over an hour talking. We didn't bother with small-talk or polite exchanges, but just jumped right into discussing travel, life's moments of glimmering paradox, and the way that every time you repeat your story, you realize yourself just a little bit more. It was exhilarating and beautiful, one of those experiences that you find yourself savoring, while all the time wondering how fate could have been so kind as to place the other person in your path.
I don't quite know why I'm telling you all this. Perhaps it's because I think you can appreciate it. Or maybe just because I feel like being still for a moment and want to share what it is that I'm thinking about without being asked. Whatever the case, I really do feel a bit better now. Funny how that can work so well if you divulge what it is you're feeling only when you’re ready to.
- Excerpt from a letter I wrote
last night to a friend in Paris.