Monday, June 7, 2010

Little.

"I'm reading over your shoul-derrr!"
"AAGH!"
Perhaps a glowing laptop screen gave me away. Up on the second floor was mom.
Dad busts out of the kitchen door. "What?"
"Nothing!"
Upstairs. "What?"
"NOTHING!"
Dad: "What?!"
"Mom's just messing with me."
Mom: "WHAT? I can't hear you!"
"NOTHING!"

So, now to recenter after that interruption. Writing outside. It's fun until your fingers go numb.

I used to do this a lot. Specifically in 2004. Here we go remembering that "perfect summer" again. There's something inspiring about the outside, the light pollution gently turning the fog orange. All I can hear is a low rumble from the freeway. It's comforting though. It's the same rumble I could hear in the morning before the chaos of a day starts. I enjoyed those times when especially towards the end of the school year I'd wake up refreshed and breathe in the morning air and listen to the white noise from the freeway. Tonight it's too overcast to see any stars, but every now and then a passing plane fools me.

I know that wishing for the past does nothing, but sometimes I can dream. 13 and feeling like a hotshot. I had a job, real payroll and lunch breaks and being sent on errands in San Francisco. I spent the summer cataloguing dreams and exploring their meanings. I learned the guitar. I played my balalaika. I typed on an old battered Dell Latitude laptop whose battery life eventually dwindled to five minutes maximum towards the end of its lifespan.

If I could go into the past, what would I change? Lots of things. But mostly I'd want to enjoy the old memories again. Escape from current stresses. To a time when I was 13 and the biggest worry on my mind was, well, nothing really. Perhaps I just want to go back to sleep and have those dreams again just to have them again.

I love to watch the sky change, to look at the stars. It really makes us remember how small we are in the grand scheme of things. Every day we walk around wrapped in our own worlds. We become so used to our surroundings that they seem so small. Consider our places of living. We confine ourselves to the building until one day we say that's it, I'm going outside. Ok, so we're outside. And staring at the sky. We say "that's where I want to be. Up on that cloud there."

I saw Powers of 10 when I was, appropriately enough, 10. It zooms all the way out until it reaches the size of the observable universe. Then it zooms all the way back in until it reaches the quarks in a man's hand.

powers of ten :: charles and ray eames from bacteriasleep on Vimeo.



We are TINY. Powers of 10 amazes me so much because of the scales it goes to.

Looking at the great dome of the sky makes me realize exactly how tiny I am, that no matter how hard I jump for the sky I can't reach it. I'm not supposed to. I remember watching the stars with my friends in Hungary. I watched the sky in the Czech Republic. In France. A sunrise in Healdsburg, a day I stayed up nearly 24 hours. And it was beautiful. I'm an all-hours kind of person. I hate waking up past 10 AM on my free days. 9:30 to 9:45 is perfect for me. Sleeping until 12, half the day is gone.

I wish that I could jump into the sky and fly. I remember being awed by flying over Massachusetts. I'd seen the curl of Cape Cod a million times before in my books but flying over it I saw that it really was that curly. I would rank it up there in the wow-factor with seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time.

I want to be the hills watching the world revolve. I want to have a different point of view than some little tiny thing on Earth. Maybe this is why I ascend Mount Tam for stargazing, just to try and get a little closer to the sky.

Now, at 11:11, I can see the stars, but only if I don't straight at them.

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