(no subject)
Rain. Cold rain lingering night and day in the languid city, as it usually does once it gets started. Sunday morning- noon, rather. I walked through the mist toward campus. Same walk. At Broad street, there were crowds of wealthy-looking young families, completely unmoved by the weather. There was a small girl in cheerleading attire, grinning obtusely from beneath the blue and white umbrella her parents were holding above her head. She was hugging a large, brilliant golden trophy- about a third her size in stature. I came to the crosswalk and looked down. Just as I did, the wheels of a car passed over a flattened navy-blue umbrella. More wheels ran over it as car after car drove by me. An SUV got caught in the intersection as the light turned red. It possessed that nervousness- that hesitancy that is what so often pisses me off about cars. It reminds you that there are people in these machines, though you wouldn't know it by looking into the tinted windows behind the bright headlights, people talking on their cell phones and being distracted and as careless as they would if they were riding a bike or walking. Add a thousand or so pounds or however much cars weigh these days. It's one of those dark, gray days- misty, bleak, lacking contrast and brooding or any definite demeanor. Anyone can look around an tell that not only has it been raining all night and all day but that it will continue to rain all day. You get the feeling that nothing else will happen in a day like this- nothing. It's impossible to tell what time of day it is- the sun is shrouded- not by thick clouds but by a thickness of clouds. It's Sunday. I used to spend such days in between romping about outside between my house and my grandparents house and watching TV. Sometimes the light would be on in the livingroom. It didn't matter what time of day it was- someone might be working on a project for school that was due the next day and in no particular rush- because time didn't matter- they were just doing it to do something. As for me, I might be working on a project but more likely, I was outside or watching TV in the middle of the day with the light on in the livingroom. Ironically, these are the days that one feels most relaxed- relieved of the burden of being human for one day. Yet, as a result, one feels so bored and unproductive. You know you won't get anything done today. Even if you do, it won't feel like you did. Perhaps, you wouldn't normally go to the movies on a Sunday afternoon or perhaps, you wouldn't normally do a lot of things. But now you do them, as if routinely. If I could, I would remember specific instances of going to the movies on rainy Sunday afternoons such as these. I remember many times going to church on such days. It always made church better- you know, a better experience. Maybe that had something to do with escaping your humanity. You could walk out into the misty rain after service feeling a deep comfortable warmth and you'd feel good about the rain- just as it was- like it was there just for you to walk in at that very moment- for that brief moment as you walked to the car- just so, right then, as you returned to the real world, you could feel the presence of God. Everything is beautiful no matter when or where or what the circumstances- so long as you have the right attitude about things. Sometimes it's as equally beautiful to look at everything and to think that there is no God. God or no, there's that attitude that precedes him. I think it has something to do with focussing on something bigger and getting out of your microcosm. And not just like that- it's more about getting away from the concept of time- or the miniscule concept of time. Whether there's a God or not, you are part of some greater plan, some greater process. And whenever you're reminded of it, everything- all the ice that's frozen over the beauty in the universe- just melts away. You are in a breif meditation. There is nothing but beauty. All is restored- all the damage that time and words have done- is all restored. It is just you and nature and the greater plan. I had to stop carrying around my phone with its clock on it- I had to stop talking to people so much, so vainly and frozen in the fear of lonlilness to perceive this beauty in the abundance that I do right now. I have no relationships of emotional dependence. And I do not currently seek any. Am I here to collect friends and connections and treasures? I act accordingly to the whims of whatever dreams I possess and to the whims of nature. I move through streets and buldings and fields and all parts like a spirit- free and unnoticed. Meditation. It's interrupted by speaking- not by writing. It's interrupted by seeking- not by time.