stars and snowflakes
Five days in, and this has been February. And all the stories I tell myself, all the excuses and plans and promises refuse to rise to the surface. I tell myself that it’s okay. That it’s always this way in this month, that it’s lack of sunshine, or fresh air, or freedom.
Silence. I surround myself with silence and I listen.
I hear whispers and promises, but not the words I crave. Patience becomes the antidote, and I work and fill the air with other people’s stories: radio, television, novels. Always a backdrop of sentence and syllable, and I wonder if I’m learning something useful, or filling my mind with capricious clutter. Or if it even matters.
I walk outside at night and search the sky, which these days, is always falling.
I feel tiny and insignificant, endless and universal. A snowflake lands on my palm and disappears before I can taste it. My tongue is empty and my skin is burning. Some nights, I don’t even wear a coat.
The dog stands still and looks into the woods, wishing for something to be there.
Me, too, I say. Me too.
Inside there’s a fire to sit beside, always the primordial companion.
There are no wolves to howl, but the coyotes are always laughing. My skin crawls at their sound, even as my lips curl into smile.
Their cause is survival, their joke life’s refrain.
Me, too, I say. Me too.
.
.
.
February 5th, 2015 at 1:35 pm
I listen to podcasts while I’m getting ready for work. Audiobooks while driving. Maybe a free course on photography while I’m cooking dinner. Hungry for knowledge, for the missing link to… something. Wanting more, more, more. Greedy to see and know and connect and visit all those lives, all those experiences. Am I missing out on something? Until I say Woah Maery! Where is there room for your own words to fill the room?
I don’t know if your experience is quite the same but that’s what your words bring to mind for me. And coyotes… their sound can come to visit me anytime.
February 6th, 2015 at 10:02 pm
tiny, insignificant…endless and universal…ha…what a contrast eh? the good news is this is the shortest month…and the sun may return soon…or at least let us feel it…