Sunday, June 1, 2008 - Peace and Quiet
It’s very quiet here. Which is odd because one always thinks of a business skyscraper as a place full of hustle and bustle, people in suits and reputations walking to and fro. Distracted even as they’re focused. But the suite up here in the Queen Building is quiet.
When I look all the way down, I can see a hint of the ‘crown’ on top of the King Building in shadow on the pavement just as the sun is breaking dawn. There’s still some lingering vapor in the air so I can’t quite see out to downtown like I usually can. At this time of morning, if the skies are clear, you can see the lights of downtown sort of switch-off as the city wakes and comes to life.
But not today. Today is a Sunday so the city sort of rises late. And with the haze, it feels a little as if we’re floating. It’s odd. Any other time, I would say it felt a little disconnected or isolated but today, it just feels quiet. Simple.
He shifts slightly in the bed and I carefully slide the blinds back into place so the light doesn’t disturb him. I really love waking up just to watch the sunrise. And I know that he usually sees sunrises from the other side. It is hard being a rich and famous playboy. One doesn’t realize the supreme effort required to maintain a life of carefree excess.
It's an incredibly constructed façade; perhaps too well-made but I can certainly understand the idea of creating the type of life you think you should have. Or at least constructing the appearance of the life you want others to think you have. If the construction is sound enough, complete enough, no one on the outside knows it’s false. The trouble is when the construction is too well done, you get trapped inside. And by then, you’ve created such an elaborate illusion that no one thinks to get close enough to hear you banging against the bars of the cage you made.
I tug a bit of the over-sized bath robe beneath my toes to seal in the warmth. Curled up in this chair, I realize I’ve made an incredibly bad habit of thinking about things. When I was younger, I would just act and trust in Lakshmi and my instincts to get out of any scrape. But it’s harder to be reckless now.
This is why I’m sitting in this chair watching him sleep. I’m trying to think hard about not thinking about this.
This is something that only makes sense if you’re me.
I’ve been floating from disaster to catastrophe to duty to responsibility and somewhere along the way, I gained a remarkable ally. Figuring out how it happened doesn’t interest me. Even really figuring out where to go with this doesn’t interest me either.
The reason I’m sitting in the chair thinking about not thinking is because I’m very calm right now when I think I should be scared. For a lot of reasons big and small. But I can't seem to be worried enough to think about them or why. So I'm going to focus on something else. He’s been having dreams of vague portents. He can’t pinpoint what’s going on yet but he can feel them. I can feel it too though it feels more like when you’re standing on sand and for some reason, your weight is wrong and you know things are going to suddenly shift beneath you.
And you know what? For some reason, I’m not really concerned about it. Any other time, I would be. I would be asking Fate for direction or trying to feel which way the breeze was blowing. But right now, I’m just calm. Not unfeeling, just… simply here. It’s very odd. This is usually a state I fight to get to or I strive to maintain. But not this morning. It’s weird. Not weird enough to concern me; just odd enough for me to make note of. It’s his doing, though not consciously so.
Maybe this is the result of telling him about Aubrey and Sheridan. (Though not all of it.) I thought I’d gotten over and past it all but when I was telling him about it; I sort of relived it all over again and it didn’t overwhelm me. That’s new.
And it's good.
Anyway, I just feel quiet. I’m going to take another moment to let it just soak in and then I’ll slip back into bed and try to get some sleep.
I love the time and in between
the calm inside me
in the space where I can breathe
I believe there is a
distance I have wandered
to touch upon the years of
reaching out and reaching in
- Sarah McLachlan "Elsewhere"
When I look all the way down, I can see a hint of the ‘crown’ on top of the King Building in shadow on the pavement just as the sun is breaking dawn. There’s still some lingering vapor in the air so I can’t quite see out to downtown like I usually can. At this time of morning, if the skies are clear, you can see the lights of downtown sort of switch-off as the city wakes and comes to life.
But not today. Today is a Sunday so the city sort of rises late. And with the haze, it feels a little as if we’re floating. It’s odd. Any other time, I would say it felt a little disconnected or isolated but today, it just feels quiet. Simple.
He shifts slightly in the bed and I carefully slide the blinds back into place so the light doesn’t disturb him. I really love waking up just to watch the sunrise. And I know that he usually sees sunrises from the other side. It is hard being a rich and famous playboy. One doesn’t realize the supreme effort required to maintain a life of carefree excess.
It's an incredibly constructed façade; perhaps too well-made but I can certainly understand the idea of creating the type of life you think you should have. Or at least constructing the appearance of the life you want others to think you have. If the construction is sound enough, complete enough, no one on the outside knows it’s false. The trouble is when the construction is too well done, you get trapped inside. And by then, you’ve created such an elaborate illusion that no one thinks to get close enough to hear you banging against the bars of the cage you made.
I tug a bit of the over-sized bath robe beneath my toes to seal in the warmth. Curled up in this chair, I realize I’ve made an incredibly bad habit of thinking about things. When I was younger, I would just act and trust in Lakshmi and my instincts to get out of any scrape. But it’s harder to be reckless now.
This is why I’m sitting in this chair watching him sleep. I’m trying to think hard about not thinking about this.
This is something that only makes sense if you’re me.
I’ve been floating from disaster to catastrophe to duty to responsibility and somewhere along the way, I gained a remarkable ally. Figuring out how it happened doesn’t interest me. Even really figuring out where to go with this doesn’t interest me either.
The reason I’m sitting in the chair thinking about not thinking is because I’m very calm right now when I think I should be scared. For a lot of reasons big and small. But I can't seem to be worried enough to think about them or why. So I'm going to focus on something else. He’s been having dreams of vague portents. He can’t pinpoint what’s going on yet but he can feel them. I can feel it too though it feels more like when you’re standing on sand and for some reason, your weight is wrong and you know things are going to suddenly shift beneath you.
And you know what? For some reason, I’m not really concerned about it. Any other time, I would be. I would be asking Fate for direction or trying to feel which way the breeze was blowing. But right now, I’m just calm. Not unfeeling, just… simply here. It’s very odd. This is usually a state I fight to get to or I strive to maintain. But not this morning. It’s weird. Not weird enough to concern me; just odd enough for me to make note of. It’s his doing, though not consciously so.
Maybe this is the result of telling him about Aubrey and Sheridan. (Though not all of it.) I thought I’d gotten over and past it all but when I was telling him about it; I sort of relived it all over again and it didn’t overwhelm me. That’s new.
And it's good.
Anyway, I just feel quiet. I’m going to take another moment to let it just soak in and then I’ll slip back into bed and try to get some sleep.
I love the time and in between
the calm inside me
in the space where I can breathe
I believe there is a
distance I have wandered
to touch upon the years of
reaching out and reaching in
- Sarah McLachlan "Elsewhere"