Free Write (10Jan09 16:36) - Loneliness

You hear people comment that "it's darkest just before the dawn," and, while that may be true - that everything seems its most desolate just before the dawn breaks through, it seems to me that the most lonely time of day is that time right at sunset. It's that time the world is calming for the night - settling down for a slumber meant to renew and refresh the bleakness of a sun-baked landscape.

It's that moment, when the sun settling into the horizon sets the sky ablaze with a bounty of colors too beautiful to be real, that the realization of how alone you may or may not be sinks in. You watch the canvas as it's being painted, longing for that special someone with whom to share that moment - only to find yourself irrevocably and totally alone. Alone in the majesty of a night symphony that was written for two - and only being played for an audience of one.

Putting pen to paper only soothes the ache that is building in your soul for a short while - soon you're wanting to cry out to the world, denounce just how unfair a hand circumstance has dealt you in that moment. Longing to share that moment - that most intimate of moments - with someone who turns your world upside down... and unable to do so. You continue to put pen to paper, hoping - no, praying - that it will quell the yearning you feel; quench the fires burning within you and feeding your passions.

And does it?

For a while. But it's a temporary fix - a band-aid for the larger problem you face each and every day. What is it about that person that makes you freeze? What is it about him that keeps you unable from finding your voice? What keeps you from singing his name from the rooftops, alerting the media... telling him?

Is it fear? Lord knows we've been hurt before - oh yes, but then what man, woman, or child hasn't? Hurt is a normal part of growing and changing in this life. It's the hurts and disappointments who make us what we are - stronger beings capable of handling the most insane circumstances imaginable.

Is it the finality of it? As if just uttering those words - asking a simple question or making a simple statement - means you can never take them back? Who would want to? Who would choose to take back words so simple, so meaningful - straight from the heart?

So what is it? What dictates this oddity that, if left to paper or screen, the words flow freely... yet remove those media where you are faced with the situation at hand (no defenses, no barriers, nothing left to get in the way) and the words freeze. And, not normally one to allow intimidation (or fear or whatever is keeping you from doing this) to rule your life, you meekly accept it as the norm - you never once question anything aloud, only in your head and in the recesses of your being. You never once say, "Why don't we..." and instead just keep on with the way things are.

So what makes this one act so impossible to perform?

Free Write (08Jan09 09:02) - Musing About the Future by Looking Into the Past

I can see it… dusty light filtered in through a grease stained window, illuminating the cracks and crevices worn into the faded linoleum by class after class of hormonal teenagers, each trying to carve his/her own niche out of the cold, unfeeling concrete walls of the high school.

I can hear it… the muffled sneakers of some ne’er-do-well running down the hall, away from the fire alarm he just pulled to get everyone out of class, his laughter wrapped around him like a warm blanket. On the stairs, a couple is hidden from view, tucked into that space under the stairs – dreaming and discussing a possible future that neither of them will realise because they will be broken up in a week.

I can smell it… lunch time fare sent to tantalise and tease your appetite – more likely to tease your gag reflex into vomiting before you could choke down one bite. Sweat, stale and acrid, wafts up from the carpeting and floorboards – sweat shed in the pursuit of knowledge… the pursuit of life… the pursuit of love.

Fast-forward… the sights and smells have changed. The grease stained windows have been replaced by elevators and pool tables. The dusty light is now filtered through tiny portals to the outside world instead of large gateways. Traipsing over faded linoleum to get to class has been replaced with hikes through the trees and snow, uphill and down, to try and make it to a 10:20 lecture.

No longer do the ne’er-do-wells run down sun lit hallways into the annals of infamy. Now they have all night drinking binges, their laughter replaced by slurred words and the sounds of vomiting at 2 in the morning. Slurred words are gradually replaced by the groaning and cursing at the effects of a hangover.

The smells – ahhh, how they tug at your heart, reminding you of a simpler time. Those smells of the hallowed concrete halls would be welcome as the foul smells of the dimly light commons assault your nose and stomach. The bland food and days’ old grease would cause your stomach to somersault like you’d been on a rollercoaster for years.