Fog Storm

Perhaps it’s raining softly, too softly to matter to the trees. I notice the rain as small droplets collect on my window. A mist hangs in the air. I open the window and the weather slides in, fills all the spaces in the room, chills my face.

Maybe as I walk beneath a sky that touches down wherever it wants to, I think, how quiet can this city get? There is water in my bottle of Evian, a water that will flow forever to the ocean, a water that connects the people walking the streets of the city every day, people who wonder if they should ever smile to one another. Perhaps someday they will, but today is not the day.

Awareness of Awareness

Perhaps the awareness of awareness always involves a change in perspective. To ourselves we are always who we are, stumbling in the debris of dreams we thought we were entitled to and plans we didn’t think we had made. Yet to others, the person we are is something that emerges gradually. A map of shadows and echoes that arrives with us and then disappears again.

Maybe as driver you twist and turn the wheel to point the car’s nose toward our destination. As  daydreaming passenger I am a necessary part of the equation, yet am left with little recollection of the miles.  Outside the window the sky is the color of pink-flushed hydrangea; inside the car your cheek reminds me of blankness on paper – the smooth white. My finger traces a blue highway along the Pacific coast, seeking the circled star of a particular city. Then, without warning, my hand lifts the entire state of California and turns it over to where it continues on the other side.