The first time I flew out of Chicago on my way back to Connecticut I had a rediculously early flight, one of those where you have to get up (or stay up, as the case may be) in the wee hours to make it to the airport in the dark and slurp bad coffee with other business travelers who could care less about the dangers of flight. We were herded onto our tiny plane - not many going to Hartford at that hour - fastened our seatbelts and waited with every intention of dozing until our beverage service.
And then the plane took off. It was somewhere in the hour between 6 and 7 and I watched the sun rise over Chicago from the air. At first struck by the homogenity of the Chicagoland suburbs, but then was awestruck by the colors of the sky around me - gold and fire and indigo becoming peach juice and aqua. The Sears Tower turned to ebony, the city backlit into two dimensions.
Inevitably, the man across the aisle from me worked through the whole spectacle. I'm not sure which sight I found more amazing. The sky, or the man.
Tonight riding my bike home, the cracked frame creaking reliably underneath me in baby blue and white, the light was fading to a soft orange pink sunset. Clouds lightly overhead, though the ground still hard and dry. It was nice out, nice for the gentle prediction of living to touch me. Though not explicitly as I want them to be, it would be hard not to savor these days.

Savor the creak of old wood on the porch as I hopskip up the stairs, the sneaky creak of the door as I enter the hallway which splits left stairs to the apartment above, and forwards to my door. How I like it, secretly wonderful. Dull rundown surrendering to the tendrils of ivy moss time, leaving the greylit world through a door opening into bursting crisp clean orangy white warm.

Stepping outside to walk barefoot down the sidewalk, feel the sandpaper grit dig into my feet and catch the transition to rain. Small drops taking on greater frequency and size until a downpour has transformed the ground, by this time I am safely on the top step under the porch roof. The first spring rains have entered correctly, with that lurking hint of summer smell.

I feel there is a strange division that cuts down through my center, parallel paradox yet essential. Inevitably I find myself carried away and drifting in the reality of a dreamer. With a delicate and thin connection as I covet and sense perhaps to greatly the surroundings and forward motion of life. I slip so easily into the recess of my mind, finding so much there that has been stored and slides to the front under guidence of random triggers, so much delicate and amazing. Forgetful and lax, it is easy to let technicalities rigid duties and obligations slip quietly by. Slicing cleanly through is a fierce propensity for logic, acting always in the background it cuts things down to simple concrete angles. Relentless, I have slowly learned to pin this down. Resist the deconstruction of every single thing into pieces which may be explained and grasped, for there is not always an absolute truth and not everything may be explained. Too grounded in reality, demanding always things be tangible, often unreasonably.

When I was much younger, falling asleep during a time of anxiety, something started to occur which persists to this day. As stress reaches a high level, closing my eyes trying to coerce sleep, a concept forms in my mind. A feeling of motion, fast and forward in direction. In the beginning this is enchanting and draws me in, skimming over some relentlessly smooth unseen surface. My anxiety starts to creep inwards, from all sides, things become turbulent and I know deep within that the smooth plane which was once underneath is now contorted, twisted, inverted in endless dimensions and directions. My motion becomes erratic and sickening, a headache rises forwards with the necessity to open my eyes and breath slowly while unclenching my fisted fingers.

and so the course was followed not dictated..

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