I said to her, “I had rather a rose than live, forever.”
The air smelled of July, with a hint of August.. It had been three months since the Great Divide. My belly was wearing thin from the inside. It was a feeling. Acclimate. With the humidity we hung between the earth and the sky. Between the sky and the earth. In between hours, in between minutes, in between seconds…..between moments.
I stood idle as she smoked her cigarette. A failed attempt to relinquish such a desperate habit. I had urged her to stop for quite some time, but to no avail. The winds set sail.
“I feel so ugly, so disheveled and unkempt,” I spoke while looking anywhere but her face.
I felt the sides of her mouth begin to rise.
“You were always disheveled and unkempt, but never ugly,” she smirked with a laugh.
“Oh yeah. Right,” I retorted.
There was always something about the summer. It always made me feel safe. As if I was covered in a giant, warm blanket. Covered from the rest of the world., lulled by the hum of air conditioners and silent streets. All of the trees constantly waving and in full regalia. Dressed in their summer’s best. Where the lungs of children, rest.
“How do we reinvent ourselves, while remaining true to our convictions?” I asked. Half expecting a real answer. Not expecting a rational or useful one.
“You just do, and see what happens…ya know? See what feels right.” She responded.
Surprisingly, this made an incredible amount of sense. I felt as if I would have given it supreme credence if the Dalai Lama had said it, but because she had said it, I pretended to dismiss it….without prejudice.
“I always feel, pushed and pulled in a myriad of different directions. Society -- pulling me towards the precipice of conformity [death], and my heart – pulling me further away from anything anyone else would find desirable.” I boldly stated.
“You think they’ll let us out early?” she offered, as if she had not heard a word of what I had just said, or as if she simply did not care.
“I need a new haircut,” I matched her dismissal.
“Yes you do.” She quickly responded, thus winning the verbal jousting with a sharp insult to the heart.
I smiled and silently offered her my congratulations. She is very pretty. Sometimes I notice this and sometimes I do not. It could be the way her face catches the light. I am never pretty in the light. I always prefer the dark. Our evolving friendship overcomes her prettiness. She is worth more to me as friend. I wished this moment would not end. Not because I liked being in her company, but because it was a safe moment. I was far from pain or happenstance. Halfway through the sundial. The war on all sides had be staved off, for the moment. The moment. But, like everything else, it was born to die.
I think that everyone looks pretty at different times. There are many factors that contribute to beauty; light, dark, mood, situation, serotonin, alcohol, vulnerability, exuberance, et al. We have the propensity to be pretty to someone at certain times. Permanence is the bane to this theory. How do we harness such a thing for prolonged periods? Everything is eventual. Love and death.
“You have probably met her already. Like two ships passing in the night.” She proffered.
It was as if God herself had spoke the words.
“…like two ships passing in the night.” I whispered.
I have always been amused with how when people do not have anything in particular to talk about and they are simply standing around wrestling with time, they converse with themselves in their minds. Then, intermittently they speak aloud a fragment of a thought or series of thoughts. A truly beautiful aspect of being human.
“I feel ok, actually. Sometimes I feel greater than I ever have, and others I feel quite despondent, but I suppose these are universal sentiments.” I said to her.
“Yeah, I know. This morning I felt like I was going to throw up every two seconds. It was probably that friggin’ sushi I had at the mall last night. I am never eating there again.” She responded.
The voices of Amsterdam and Belgium whispering in the distance. When I was a great deal younger Tori told me that they “say that things change, my dear.” I suppose they do, but I despise when things change. I am not ready. Not for this. When I was very young I cried for weeks when my mom traded in her old, face encompassing glasses, for new streamlined spectacles. I died for weeks when my parents replaced the old brown shag rug in my room for a new stain-resistant, closely cropped sky blue rug. That old rug was the terrain of my youth. Many memories lived and died on that rug. Many epic battles of youthful imagination were fought upon its surface. Many dreams carried me to far off places as I lay sleeping in its comfort as a child. I saved a piece of that rug, I saved those glasses, that old blanket that they thought they threw out, those broken toys, those scribbled stories, all of those little pieces of things that meant nothing to anyone else but myself. I saved them all and many other things like them. I carry them with me. They are in my Pandora’s box. Waiting to bring me back there…with them.
“People say that ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same,’ but that is not true at all.” I interjected.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“Well, it seems to me that when most things change, they stay changed. Quite changed. Growing up and getting older is an extremely difficult thing to experience. Letting go of youth and dealing with the harsh realities of life is very disappointing. When we were younger, everything seemed as if it was always ok. The world was so much more beautiful. As children every color was a thousand billion times brighter. As teenagers love and lust painted the world with stars and hearts. At each transition, something is always changed, never to recoil back to more beautiful feelings and times. Change in our lives now…is many times PERMANENT. The hurt of a lost love, is real and permanent. Those grades, permanent. Death, permanent. Aging, permanent. Change is a harbinger of sorrow.” I orated.
“Yeah, it kinda sucks. You suck for saying that, now I miss my dog.” She snorted, rather aggressively as she punched me in the arm.
My father always told me that the dictionary is a very powerful thing. He was right.
And I said, “in Sara’s silence there is something that catches my eye, in Sara’s silence the sunset, never, ever, dies…it never, ever dies…”
“Almost time,” she promptly informed.
“Although it is about perspective. Change, deceptively leading to times of lesser value, can provide opportunity for rectifying wrongs. For answering prayers. For standing up. For inducing action where action was lost. For reinvention. For little children. For remembering the rain. For experiencing the rain again. For aging gracefully. For not “aging” at all. For falling in love. For climbing in esteem. For realizing that failure is sometimes refreshing and necessary. For gaining weight. For losing weight. For taking that trip. For just staying home. For that rising sunset. For holding her hand. For teaching others. For being taught. For making memories. For making amends. For doing silly things. For no regrets. For beginning to understand. For failing to be misinformed. For not caring. For caring too much. For just being ok. For long conversations. For another cup of coffee. For finally respecting your parents. For forgetting those who have broken us. For eventually making peace with change itself.” I exclaimed -- on and off.
“Damnit, my phone died” she grunted, whiled fumbling with her pink, bejeweled cellular telephone.
Things change.
Just then I noticed a red balloon floating in the sky. Wayyy up in the sky. A single red balloon. Bouncing from cloud to cloud. At times it seemed motionless, then it would float onward. It was serenity. I followed it until it became a red blood cell and then invisible.
…maybe they do stay the same…
…sometimes.
