It goes like this: early alarm, head under the pillow, quick shower where I forget to shave my legs again. Down the stairs, down the street, onto the bus, and eight hours in the office: scribbling on Post-Its, staring at the computer, going to meeting, getting a third cup of tea. Bus again, at least I can read, and more often than not I get off in town: this week there was a dinner with friends, a play, and there would have been an after-work work meeting except I took part of yesterday off to tend to my inexplicably sore toe. Dinners, drinks, hot chocolates, cafes, movies, shows, and of course this is all with friends, of course, as you’d expect, hey girl! where-are-you texts, kisses, hugs, so how was your day at work, what time does this thing start anyway? Everyone giggles, or they lean forward and put their elbows on the table preparatory to imparting some important information, or they lean back and sip their drinks and smile at everyone else. I laugh and sip and watch everyone else, I kiss and hug. See you tomorrow, everyone says, see you this weekend, see you next week, and there’s a ride home if I’m lucky, or if I’m not a sleepy bus ride home to my flatmates and my hot water bottles and my email and my moisturizer and my bed, and that’s the day, that’s many days. It’s going so quick, lately, the days switch over and the year’s almost done.
Right in the middle, though, sometimes, in the bar or the café or in the theater,I let go of everyone else for a minute, or I leave them, or something, easy as closing my eyes and taking a breath. The kiss and hiss and hush of the waves on the long low innocent beach, there underneath, slow and slower. The night’s silent eye.
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2 responses to “Or Something”
Chills!
I spent the night before yesterday in Iqaluit, northern territories, artic region, Canada, with a HIGH temperature of minus 5* and a warning that in winter it does drop to a whopping minus 50*.
Still, there were kids hanging out, waiting to be admitted in a dance hall, laughing and giggling at foreign pilots, so obviously ill equipped for the existing conditions and I couldn’t help but visualizing a dramatically different vision of sand dunes in an african desert… not so much to derive some form of heath out of it, but as a contrasting reminder that life has its way to go on, even under the most harsh conditions.
Common traits, a hundred miles visibility, an incredibly starry sky, a quest for a better life…
Night’s silent eye has indeed its way to make you thinking…