Fingers slowly pry open two of the razor-thin shades and vision slips through the open gap and then through a window pane. Visible is the disappearing dark black of the night sky being uncovered into a softer purple and then easing into an endless blue and a brilliant gold. Blink and it’s gone.
On the green grass, dew loiters, magnetized momentarily and heavily clinging to the blades shooting from the ground sharing space with the cobwebs outlined now in thin white lines by the same dew, all destined to soon disappear in an evaporating trick of the eye.
This is Tuesday morning.
Later today, Tuesday morning will give way to the midday and then, on this one particular day, unseen and without ceremony, one season, spring, will yield to another season, summer, as has happened without fail forever. Seasons swap as the sun and the moon align in a certain way for a certain time. Summer follows spring. This year Tuesday is the day for that transition. This year, some will say that transition happened weeks before as if summer were impatient for it’s own arrival or as if spring had somewhere better to go and left going there early.
Later today, what Tuesday morning started and let move to midday will drift into afternoon. The sun will warm everything outside. In times past, we would measure the warmth by documenting the mercury stretching upward, growing taller in some blood red streak on a rusty old Dr. Pepper thermometer nailed to the side of a house for so long that the paint underneath still looks new and unfaded. Now, though when we are curious how many degrees the heat can be measured in, we look to a bank building sign, garish, neon, tacky, spelling out in large numbers, between finance rates and the current time, how hot the now is. Time changes, time stays the same. Was it really that hot then as it is now, we wonder. A hot Tuesday then is hot Tuesday now. But maybe it is hotter now, we conclude.
Morning’s dew returns in the form of late afternoon humidity which stands upright but invisibly in the atmosphere like some warm barrier separating the afternoon from the evening. Like the certain alignment of the sun and the moon escorts spring into summer, if all conditions mix, a season of thunderstorms may transition in during this time. More likely, though, the afternoon will dissolve into the evening easily hurtling that barrier without much effort and without the aid of thousands of raindrops and gusty winds. The shadows of the trees grow a bit longer now shading selected places like they do on any other day, nothing remarkable about that no matter the day of the week even though it is the same, but different, every day.
The kaleidoscope of colors Tuesday morning ushered in is gone. It will be replaced though by a new palette as night gently, politely knocks on the door before easing that door open, creaky, squeaky noises and all, and saunters in, slowly, without waiting for an invitation to enter. The colors in the sky may be the same as the morning and may appear in reverse order from then but the textures of each will be different now, the gold will be faded as if tempered by the heat, the blue melting and wilting into purple or pink or orange before the soft black crawls in, then deepens with each ticking second before outlining all that can be seen highlighted by sparkling stars.
And just like that Tuesday is gone. With it, the potential, the possibilities, the hopes, all gone.
If I could, I would like to go back and ask Tuesday morning some questions.
I would start with, so, Tuesday morning, how does all this feel? I mean all this started today with you.
How does it feel to be the bleeding edge of potential when you showed up today? Does it disappoint you to know some of us woke up and looked past the here and now you brought and wished you were Friday afternoon or Saturday morning or sometime other than now? When we pushed sleep around in our eyes and groaned how we only needed a few more minutes of slumber grousing because here you arrived like you were some surprise, even though every week here you are, habitually, Tuesday morning, direct on the heels of Monday night, did that surprise you? Do you find some humor when someone tosses around a statement like, ‘Well, it’s Tuesday morning; at least it ain’t Monday morning’? Did you feel any added pressure with the season changing thing happening on your watch?
Do you ever grow weary of hearing us complain about how sometimes you are not what we really want? Would you tell us, if you could, that a life consists of as many Tuesday mornings as it does Friday nights or whatever other time seems better than right now? Would you remind us that wishing time away wishes life away? And would that remind us how valuable life really is? Would it make us understand how time is a deep reservoir we continually use that grows shallower with every new day? Blink and it’s gone.
Tuesday morning, it all started with you, so how does it feel?
Of course, there is no direct reply to that question. This particular Tuesday morning spoke without words. It spoke with the morning breaking early. It spoke in the sizzle of the midday heat. It spoke in the skin-soaking sweat of the afternoon. It spoke in the humid wall guarding the evening. It spoke in the encroaching gathering darkness of the night.
Maybe though within those things lies how Tuesday morning would answer if words were possible. Maybe if asked Tuesday morning would say to each of us, “Really, it all starts with you.”
6.21.2011
6.14.2011
The Seemingly Disappearing Art of Conversating
I looked up from the safe little world I was momentarily ensconced in long enough to take a count. I counted each person present in my group, my eyes moving around the small space as I silently spoke numbers to myself. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. There were five of us. We gathered in this place to wait for a few others to join us before we moved on to the next place on our list. As we sat and stood there I noticed how quiet it was between the five of us and noted how it had been this quiet for several minutes. Before looking back down at my phone, I took a more deliberate inventory. Again, my eyes moved from one person to another and I observed that all five of us, me included, held some electronic device in a hand, attention diverted, eyes gazing down onto some screen absorbed, captivated, lost, in a sea of pixels.
I had just sent a text message. Unsure exactly what the others were doing, I imagined one in our group was posting something on Facebook, another looking up directions, another playing a game and still another reading a book.
Five of us. Not one word.
Maybe it had been a long day. Maybe we were all tired of one another. Maybe we were all bored and looking for something to do. Maybe all of us had have rather been somewhere else with anyone else at that very moment. Maybe all of the above.
There was though no maybe about the quiet. Five of us. No words. Yet we were all occupied with something but none of it with anyone else in our group.
For a moment, it crossed my mind that maybe, in this day of instant and global communication, we are losing the skill of actually talking with one another; even if that lost talk is the basic conversation that fills in the less significant spaces between the moments in life that really do matter.
Then again, I turned back to the gadget in my hand and thought about how it opens up so many things that are really incredible. Now I can communicate with so many people at any time from almost anywhere. If I want to look up a newspaper article from two weeks ago or two decades ago, I can do that from the palm of my hand. I can entertain myself with some game I first played on an Atari in 1981 while in the waiting room in my doctor’s office avoiding the same October 2004 issue of Golf Magazine that has been there for years. I can connect with friends from long ago over the web and hang on the details of their day-to-day lives like a previous generation did with The Edge of Night. I mean when you have all this, who really needs conversation?
And while all these things are great, they still miss that something special. Through today’s technological magic, I am able to peak in on the lives of my friends anytime from anywhere. But sometimes I find that being able to do that tricks me into believing I don’t really need to connect with them more than checking out their Facebook page or Twitter feed every other day. Doing that means I miss out on those conversations that sparkle with personality or that convey wry, dry, sidesplitting humor or that pack unhindered emotion, all unique things that just come across flat and lacking in a digital world. It’s hard to believe those things can be replicated in some app.
Finally, after waiting and waiting, the rest of our group appears. Of course, each of them is holding some sort of electronic device. After a moment, one of them speaks the first words our group has heard in minutes, “Let’s go.”
We all look up, acknowledging the command, and then follow each other out the door, staggering and slowed as each one of us continues to be immersed disappearing into our own little worlds we hold in each of our own little hands.
I had just sent a text message. Unsure exactly what the others were doing, I imagined one in our group was posting something on Facebook, another looking up directions, another playing a game and still another reading a book.
Five of us. Not one word.
Maybe it had been a long day. Maybe we were all tired of one another. Maybe we were all bored and looking for something to do. Maybe all of us had have rather been somewhere else with anyone else at that very moment. Maybe all of the above.
There was though no maybe about the quiet. Five of us. No words. Yet we were all occupied with something but none of it with anyone else in our group.
For a moment, it crossed my mind that maybe, in this day of instant and global communication, we are losing the skill of actually talking with one another; even if that lost talk is the basic conversation that fills in the less significant spaces between the moments in life that really do matter.
Then again, I turned back to the gadget in my hand and thought about how it opens up so many things that are really incredible. Now I can communicate with so many people at any time from almost anywhere. If I want to look up a newspaper article from two weeks ago or two decades ago, I can do that from the palm of my hand. I can entertain myself with some game I first played on an Atari in 1981 while in the waiting room in my doctor’s office avoiding the same October 2004 issue of Golf Magazine that has been there for years. I can connect with friends from long ago over the web and hang on the details of their day-to-day lives like a previous generation did with The Edge of Night. I mean when you have all this, who really needs conversation?
And while all these things are great, they still miss that something special. Through today’s technological magic, I am able to peak in on the lives of my friends anytime from anywhere. But sometimes I find that being able to do that tricks me into believing I don’t really need to connect with them more than checking out their Facebook page or Twitter feed every other day. Doing that means I miss out on those conversations that sparkle with personality or that convey wry, dry, sidesplitting humor or that pack unhindered emotion, all unique things that just come across flat and lacking in a digital world. It’s hard to believe those things can be replicated in some app.
Finally, after waiting and waiting, the rest of our group appears. Of course, each of them is holding some sort of electronic device. After a moment, one of them speaks the first words our group has heard in minutes, “Let’s go.”
We all look up, acknowledging the command, and then follow each other out the door, staggering and slowed as each one of us continues to be immersed disappearing into our own little worlds we hold in each of our own little hands.
6.06.2011
A Thousand Miles Away
Austin, Texas on a Saturday night
The heat of the day melts into the velvet black of nighttime easing the temperature down a handful of degrees. It is here where Texas music past, in the form of steel guitars and twin fiddles is sampled with the more modern rat-a-tat-tat rhythm that drifts out from the dives, hide-a-way holes and remodeled and remade buildings lined up in a neon row down Sixth Street intersecting at Congress Avenue. Those looking for a good time find their way here and stay long into the night, the loner wanting to get away from it all in the midst of a crowded somewhat controlled chaos, the stoner waiting for the next round, the frat brothers and the sorority sisters spending their youth like a reckless rich man spends money, the good ole gal from a bit further out in the hill country, the poser with the expensive Italian shoes and designer jeans ripped at the knees and the tourist struggling to process everything that is going on all around.
Work takes me away from home and brings me here, a thousand miles away, for a few days. And now it brings me back to my hotel room for the night.
In the distance, the party roars. Next door, the fighting, between a man and a woman, begins.
First came the pounding on a nearby door. That was followed by raised voices. Then came the demand, drenched and dripping in anger and hurt, for an apology. Doors were slammed. Denials offered. Through the walls, words were spoken, unintelligible on my side but clearly with enough attitude from the other side to sound accusatory.
Then it grew quiet. Then more of the same with the volume turned down a notch.
I cannot tell you anymore about what went on next door other than what I just described. I’m not so sure I really want to know more. And I’m not so sure what I would have done in case things escalated past the point where they seemed to end.
As the fighting quieted, I was left with its echoes. I wondered if the fighting couple loved one another or claimed to love one another. I wondered what made them get that crazy, that seemingly out of rational thought to set into motion slamming doors and yelling at one another revealing details which are probably best left unshared with total strangers sharing a floor of a hotel for a short time. I wondered if constant crisis and drama were the norm for this couple. I wondered if rattling cages and stirring up stuff is the way they "get along" with one another. I wondered if either one of them at some point thought they deserved better than what they were receiving or were really above what they were dishing out.
Away from all the wondering, my mind goes to what I do know. Here, I hear other echoes, echoes from a thousand miles away in Tennessee. These echoes come from a certain place where the velvet black of the nighttime grows deep and dark and where the only noise from the outside is an occasional car radio played too loud, a howling dog or the whistle of a passing train a few miles away. It’s the place where I share life with my wife, the woman I love, the woman I miss not just now, not just tonight, but whenever we’re away from one another. It's there where life sometimes feels humdrum but where the everyday world we live in feels comfortable. So comfortable in fact that I know without any doubt, it’s where I belong and where we belong together.
For the next few days though I am here until the work I have to do is completed. I close my eyes and search for slumber trying to balance all these things in the back of my mind.
Next door, the fighting seems to have stopped. In the distance though, the neon burns bright enough to light the edges of the window frame and the music propels itself across the way enough to form a low rumbling backbeat that lulls me into a night’s sleep where I dream of how life is a thousand miles away.
The heat of the day melts into the velvet black of nighttime easing the temperature down a handful of degrees. It is here where Texas music past, in the form of steel guitars and twin fiddles is sampled with the more modern rat-a-tat-tat rhythm that drifts out from the dives, hide-a-way holes and remodeled and remade buildings lined up in a neon row down Sixth Street intersecting at Congress Avenue. Those looking for a good time find their way here and stay long into the night, the loner wanting to get away from it all in the midst of a crowded somewhat controlled chaos, the stoner waiting for the next round, the frat brothers and the sorority sisters spending their youth like a reckless rich man spends money, the good ole gal from a bit further out in the hill country, the poser with the expensive Italian shoes and designer jeans ripped at the knees and the tourist struggling to process everything that is going on all around.
Work takes me away from home and brings me here, a thousand miles away, for a few days. And now it brings me back to my hotel room for the night.
In the distance, the party roars. Next door, the fighting, between a man and a woman, begins.
First came the pounding on a nearby door. That was followed by raised voices. Then came the demand, drenched and dripping in anger and hurt, for an apology. Doors were slammed. Denials offered. Through the walls, words were spoken, unintelligible on my side but clearly with enough attitude from the other side to sound accusatory.
Then it grew quiet. Then more of the same with the volume turned down a notch.
I cannot tell you anymore about what went on next door other than what I just described. I’m not so sure I really want to know more. And I’m not so sure what I would have done in case things escalated past the point where they seemed to end.
As the fighting quieted, I was left with its echoes. I wondered if the fighting couple loved one another or claimed to love one another. I wondered what made them get that crazy, that seemingly out of rational thought to set into motion slamming doors and yelling at one another revealing details which are probably best left unshared with total strangers sharing a floor of a hotel for a short time. I wondered if constant crisis and drama were the norm for this couple. I wondered if rattling cages and stirring up stuff is the way they "get along" with one another. I wondered if either one of them at some point thought they deserved better than what they were receiving or were really above what they were dishing out.
Away from all the wondering, my mind goes to what I do know. Here, I hear other echoes, echoes from a thousand miles away in Tennessee. These echoes come from a certain place where the velvet black of the nighttime grows deep and dark and where the only noise from the outside is an occasional car radio played too loud, a howling dog or the whistle of a passing train a few miles away. It’s the place where I share life with my wife, the woman I love, the woman I miss not just now, not just tonight, but whenever we’re away from one another. It's there where life sometimes feels humdrum but where the everyday world we live in feels comfortable. So comfortable in fact that I know without any doubt, it’s where I belong and where we belong together.
For the next few days though I am here until the work I have to do is completed. I close my eyes and search for slumber trying to balance all these things in the back of my mind.
Next door, the fighting seems to have stopped. In the distance though, the neon burns bright enough to light the edges of the window frame and the music propels itself across the way enough to form a low rumbling backbeat that lulls me into a night’s sleep where I dream of how life is a thousand miles away.
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