Every so often, a few sentences remind me there’s an inscrutable someone behind my frowns and smiles and grimaces. Those words, cobbled into semi-coherent thoughts, leave me a little rattled and hungry to project a permanent poker face.
“A highway is curling up like smoke above my shoulder.”
Though I’ve slightly modified his lyrics to make them mine, they belong to people looking for the safety of distance and lonely isolation. I am restless and ready to explore where a rarely-traveled road will take me. A map of my own making will take me to the outskirts of an eerily quiet town—Empty, Arizona—where I can avoid probing questions and prying eyes. No one there will attempt to get to know me. The few who escape to Empty have their own secrets to protect and their own diminishing privacy to preserve—so they will not dare infringe on mine. That could put theirs at risk. All of us—the few who seek refuge at the outer edge of nowhere— are after the security of solitude. We are strangers. Misfits. Wanderers looking for places where nobody will notice our absence when we slip away under cover of pre-dawn darkness. But if I find the right place—if Empty is the right place—I won’t leave. Because everyone else will have left already. I will miss the camaraderie I’ve never found, but there will be plenty of loneliness, always, to fill up the vacant spaces.
Reading the news can be akin to chopping at one’s own serenity. Every paragraph corresponds to a powerful blow with a newly-sharpened, rust-laden machete. Slivers of tranquility fly off at the points of impact, leaving behind jagged remnants of the fragile frameworks of peace. They lean and sway, in danger of collapsing into piles of shattered dreams, abandoning any realistic hope for the gentle caress of relief.
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I cannot tell whether it’s raining outside or whether, instead, my eyes are experiencing some sort of seizure that causes me to “see” pine needles sparkle without the shine. I do not know how else to describe the images my brain is processing. What appears to be raindrops jiggle (or sparkle) in the air, but I see no light reflecting off of them…i.e., there’s no glisten nor shine going on.
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Another cone of Full Moon (Luna Llena) incense is releasing smoke into the air in my study. My smart speaker is playing at very low volume the soothing sound of wind chimes. That gentle noise contrasts with the loud “Caw! Caw! Caw!” of crows; they are asking for peanuts, I think. Actually, considering the volume of the sounds they are making, I think they may be demanding peanuts. Ah! The crows stopped at the same time a recorder replaced the wind chimes.
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Prisms refract light. Prisons refract life. I’m sure I’ve said it before. Placing half the population (of my choice) of this country in solitary confinement would be an extremely challenging undertaking. But it just might be worth the effort.
