We Walk to the River and We Sit: Part IV
“Yeah, yeah, fine. Scatterbrained. I’ll take it.”
“See!”
“What?”
“Even then you were thinking about something else, weren’t you?”
“When?”
“In that fit of laughter I saw you stop for a moment, staring at the sky, smiling.”
“Did I? Guilty as charged then, I guess.”
“Oh no, you’re not getting off that easily! What was it? What made you stop?”
“What made me stop? Oh, I saw the sky and the stars and I couldn’t help but to think about spatial perception. Area delineation. About how, right now, this place feels wholly different from the rest of the world.”
“Different how?”
“Calmer. Cleaner. It feels like I can communicate with the universe—matter being so still that even my thoughts are picked up in the air and thrown here and there. That the sound of our voices permeates this area but can’t venture outward because once the waves leave, they would collide with chaos and entropy.”
I grab another cigarette and light it. Silence. The wind. Silence.
I can feel her staring at me so I look at her and then away and she just laughs and says, “Oh god, I forgot how weird you were!”
“Not fair! You asked!”
“No, no I’m just kidding, really. I just always forgot how you speak when talking about thoughts. It caught me off guard is all. I like it. And I think I get it. When you remove yourself from your standard surroundings, it’s easier to notice and appreciate the stillness around you.”
“Yes, exactly, and for me when I can perceive that, the place I’m in feels closed off, shielded from the standard bombardment of noise and responsibility.”
“That makes sense, it does.”
“I wish I could work myself into that mental state at will, but, I think, for me at least, that so much depends upon context, environment, who I’m with, what I’m thinking, or feeling, et cetera. I haven’t felt like this for a long time, I think. I don’t even remember. Usually all I can see is the chaotic crush of the outside world—no, not crush, it’s not necessarily bad, but…just the inseparable nature of it.”
“Oh I find myself going in the opposite direction these days. Not opposite, but, I guess, I tend toward introspection—forget where I am, that kind of thing. I think I do see some of the outside world as a chaotic crush rather than inseparable. I have these moments when I’m in a crowd of people and my mind wanders and I think about life and death and everything that happens in between and I think about where I fit on that spectrum and then something happens—a noise, contact, the light—whatever, and I find myself rushing back. And it does feel like I’m sliding through some kind of tunnel, tunnel vision and all, and then I’m suddenly back, usually with a sense of confusion and disappointment.”
“Disappointment?”
“Well, yeah, I mean…I guess it depends…”
She trails off. I look up. I think of life and death and everything that happens in between, where I fit on that spectrum. The sky is darker; more distant.
A sigh. I am here.
“…I think it depends greatly on where I am, what I’m doing, who I’m with, you know, like you said earlier. Like, if I’m at work, then hell yes it’s disheartening to come back to. I mean, in those moments, I think about how certain death is, how it’s the only thing in life that you can rely on one hundred percent, and there I am, sitting in front of a computer and a phone, doing something I absolutely hate. That’s what I’m using my time for. That’s how I’m choosing to exist.”
“Yeah, but, you have to, to be able to—”
“I know, I know…short term, long term, all that. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.”
“No, it might not. Sometimes you can’t feel anything but absolute frustration for doing something so counter to what you want to be. The only thing that seems to help me is to make sure I do something intentionally at least once a day. I mean, it doesn’t have to be anything important, as long as you want to do it. To be decisive. To make a decision and follow through with it. I mean, obviously this doesn’t help the long term—that I’m useless at—but it makes the day to day easier. Most of the time. You get those days where you don’t want to do anything—”
“Or worse—want to do everything.”
“Oh god, yeah. Everything and nothing, all at once.”
“I think it’s that stupid sense of urgency I get when I think about—realize, actually acknowledge that I’m going to die. I want to do everything so badly to the point where I become immobilized.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Oh I don’t know. Paint a picture, read a book, travel, meet people. No, god, those are so generic. I want to stand at the base of the ocean at sunrise, feel my feet sink into the sand as the morning warmth hits me. I want to look into space and know the names of all the constellations. I want to reach into history and know why they’re important. And I do want to travel. I want to see the artifacts of people who lived thousands of years before me. I want to see the remnants of their existence and fully understand that while I’m a blip in the universe, there’s a chance that I can affect someone long after I’m gone.”
