Tonight, the city is really dark. Black with no trace of blue.

It's as if the lights turned up the contrast so that they can seem brighter.
The air is clean and clear and a collective anxiety has been squished, for now. Tonight, there's not just a lightness for the eyes, but a lightness for the chest. As if some dense mass was wrestled down by the hands of something mighty - held to the ground just above the cooling city pavement.

So, I sigh and bring some warm chai to my lips and wonder how long I have to breathe.

Today was good. I enjoyed the sun. Dressed for a job interview, I caught the #2, interviewed with a nutritionist for a part-time receptionist/assistant position. We loved each other instantly. She was filled with humor and candor and I found her to be refreshing. What a wonderful way to be a doctor.

"I have other interviews scheduled," she said. "But, I think I already like you."

I smiled and felt some relief. Relief that I was out in the sun and relieved to meet this woman whom, according to the piles of randomness on her desk and laid-back demeanor, I could tell was also a spacial being existing in a linear world.
I immediately felt at home.

"You're so accomplished", she said looking down at my resume. "Why do you want to do this?"

And then a perpetual moment began. You know, those moments when everything passes before you like a deck of cards. Because I knew the only reason I was there was because I've been searching for sanity. Some kind of routine in my routineless life. Something to get me out of bed. And I guess things like eating and paying rent are important, too.
But, accomplished? That word struck me because for so long, I've felt the opposite according to the world. And here was this "accomplished" woman extending a bravo to me.

"I'm transitioning and I'm an independent writer so I'm looking for something to supplement my income." That was the joker.
Nodding and understanding, she preceded on to the next point.

Afterward on my way home, I paid attention a little longer to people's faces on the bus. Where had they just come from? Where are they going? I tried not to stare and be rude. It's just that I feel like I'm seeing everything for the first time lately. Like I'm becoming privy to another dimension and all of my senses have been heightened.

And it's all utterly beautiful and utterly tragic at once. Like the current night cradling the lights, lately all of everything is showing me it's sharpest contrasts.

Slowly but surely, I'm learning not to get cut by them.

Tonight the city is really dark. Black with no trace of blue.
But the day --- ah the day. It was filled with rolling color falling all around and in and out of me ---
--- blending itself, and me, into this giant bliss of a breathing painting.

So, I think I'll undulate in this rainbow today. And I'll hope for more - for the perpetual tomorrow.



SONG: Brian Eno & Harold Budd, "Still Return" - Album: The Pearl

Today is hard.

I can't find a job and it's making me understand some things. I've hated this system for so long. It's broken and forever will be unable to sustain anyone who knows it.
I have purposely lived my life eccentrically -- creatively learning to earn a living.
I'm a writer.
I'm a musician.
I'm a strong communicator.
I'm a dancer.

I can look good on paper but even better in action. Yet, what I don't have is the ability nor the desire to put on the smile, nod my head, wear what they wear, say what they say -- nor do I have the desire to even try.
So, that leaves me here -- living in-between the cracks I've fallen through. Or, maybe I purposely dove into them trying to avoid becoming 'one of them'.
And it's lonely in this crevice. Once in a while someone else falls in - someone new. Then, I become a teacher. This is what becomes my job.

"How did you get here?" they ask. "Did you see that hole up ahead?"
I wonder about my answer. Because I didn't necessarily see the hole up ahead. But, subconsciously I may have wished for a detour - something - anything to take me away from this unnatural way of being.
"No", I say daydreaming into their eyes. "I slipped."

But, I've got to be honest. The truth is I've chosen to stay here. I hear the mainstream traffic above me pounding ahead. Like herds of animals, I can tell the time when they are rising to go west and when, at the end of the day, they herd together towards the setting sun.
Mumblings, lights, drips and odors sometimes make their way down here. And I love when the soft rain falls gracefully onto the pavement above me. It is slow to drip into this crack but when it does it brings glitter - making this old, deep dark earth sweat.

I swear at times I can sense someone spotting the hole but choosing to jump over it with their brand new heels, in the rain. But something in me can see their pause. Their eyebrows furrowing and eyes searching back within their sockets.
Instead, they move on with the traffic. Maybe they'll return someday with a flashlight.

"Do you know the way out?" asks the newly fallen.
We look at each other exchanging subliminal messages. Silence. No answer. Sighs.

Looking at them in the silence of the graceful rain, I quietly respond "It's just that today -- I don't know if I want to be found".

Today I am seeing my hands for the first time.

They are fine, aging, interesting, strong and vulnerable. I paid attention to their detail. The areas around my cuticles are chipped, split, pink and slightly opened. My thumbs are decorated with small pieces of dry skin.
I slather cream on them in hopes to moisturize away their deadness --- or maybe just hide it.

But, the fact remains --- I am biting them because of some invisible deadness in me. So, I search for something within that invisibility. I swim through the abstract nuance with hopes of finding something so utterly real that I will know it when I see it.

Here, I will share my innate human desire to find meaning to it all. Everything from finger-tips to the sea will be considered in this tiny, dusty space off the access road of this internet highway.

Maybe you feel this way -- it's just that there's got to be more - more than this silly system of bureaucracy that continues to haze all of us in this sorority/fraternity of a world. Jumping through hoops of fire loses it's fun after a while.

Today I'm seeing the sea for the first time.

It is ancient ... a collective consciousness that holds the secrets of our literal world. It is a grave and a source of life. Today, when looking out upon its perpetual rippling and tempered mood swings, I don't only see a place to bathe --- I see Mercy incarnate. For, if it wanted to, it would come up from its depths and devour us into its belly.

I hope you all will join me as I swirl upward - searching for what I feel is a better place waiting to be realized.

Always,
-WomanWhoSees