The here and now.

I thought it might be a good idea to take a break from the backlogs and focus on the present moment.  Travel blogging can become sort of dry at any time.  And when I'm feeling most invigorated to write I am likely doing something else.  Having a figurative mobile writing desk is a mentality not easily achieved.

The benefit to writing about happenings long past is that the rosy feelings subside and I can reflect a bit more on observations rather than feelings.  But feelings are fun.  They're enigmatic and novel, giving birth to metaphorical thinking and hopefully into new language.

The more I travel the more I appreciate language.  Even if we spoke the same literal language we can find vast differences in our thinking, and sometimes you may not share a single word in common with another person but you understand some basic need or desire.  Moving through all of these countries with their diverse and runic languages is humbling.  I will never know more than a smattering of each, and maybe I'll know a handful well enough in this lifetime.

English is my preferred mode for now.  It seems like the best thing I have to capture that erratic stream of consciousness.  But sometimes words fall short.  And that's okay—because if words did all the work then we wouldn't need those ineffable qualities of music and drawing and whatever we might call art.  They are other languages in this long standing transmission of thought.  We're playing an infinite game of Telephone or Super Pictionary.  We take one phrase or picture and mix it up into another, sometimes engendering another form altogether.  I use language in a loose sense, but words seem to be a combination of music and painting.  Letters are just little symbolic paintings that are associated with sounds that come out of our mouths.  In that sense, even different styles of art might be considered other languages of art.  We're pretty good at categorizing the physical symbols.  I may not be able to differentiate Chinese and Korean, symbolically or sonically, but I might be more inclined to interface other cultures through painting or drawing.  There may never be a universal language, but there are myriad connecting threads to be discovered yet.

But alas, I love my words from time to time.  I get lost in my head often.  Sometimes the monologue rambles on about puerile nonsense.  But occasionally it'll turn to something interesting, unbidden.  There are too many ideas to capture, but I try to pursue more and more ideas just in case they strike a rich vein.  Is a nugget of truth better than a nugget of gold?  Sometimes words and poems are just fun to admire, not really offering much long-lasting value.  But sometimes they sit with you for a long time, maybe even guiding you.

My impulse is often to follow what is immediately rewarding, but some things require a vast amount of time to blossom.  In this sense we must carry the torch and revel in what small victories we witness in our short lives.  Humanity is just an atomic pin prick on the needle of geological time, and within this unfathomable vastness we must find our purpose.  What a daunting thought, I think.  But most days, I feel up to the challenge.

And now, my friend Janet asked me to finish a poem.  She gave me the first line, and that's usually enough: "She sat by the window."

She sat by the window,
Not waiting for anything in particular,

but these scenes usually stir feelings of pensive anticipation.
 

She sat by the window, staring blankly, sinking into her memories.

She's the type who has a way with words,

but moments like this tend to leave her speechless.

Her mind runs in circles,

staring through this window

into an interminable sea of dilapidated homes

spotted with yellowing, grassy brush.

She feels strangely paralyzed,

robbed of any inertia or will to move;

The view is both disheartening and enticing.

She can't look away.

It's as though a thousand eyes are staring

right back at her,

through the window,

the discolored glass flowing downward

after years of sunlight—

yet she sees nobody.

It was in this brief, fleeting moment that she caught a glimpse of herself.

Not a reflection in the glass,

but instead she saw her body in the empty suburban city streets below.

She shuffled about in her sundress,

barefoot, pausing at intersections,

looking not only left and right, but behind,

her expression unreadable as the breeze tossed her hair about.

Her movement made no indication that anything was wrong,

yet her listlessness revealed a deep sadness,

a longing for some sort of direction to follow.

A goal to obtain.

The girl turns a corner, uncertainly,

and disappears from view like some ghostly apparition.

The woman sat by the window,

waiting for nothing.

She smirks to herself and turns back the way she came.