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.