The Dust

The Dust
Will continue
To settle
Long after
The building
Stops shaking.

Travel Light Manifesto

Standing outside the station of the grey dog, the station the color of the namesake of the hound. I'm not focused on the greytop. The stars hold my attention.

I was standing under a single lamp with my single backpack and single suitcase, music devices playing one song on repeat, as the star that's beat me to the ground today sets in the west. I stood there until the sky simmered and cooled.

There is such stark beauty at these hours. Alone in a nowhere town, waiting for a bus that might not make it. Ignore the news TV in the lobby I dropped into. A suspicious night manager eying me, like I eye them; weary and tired. I smile, to break the stoney glare. On a lucky chance I guessed the name.

My new friend in my nowhere town. I check out of a hotel I never checked into, with parting words and a promise of another day, some day. And if I never make it back this way, well at least there was today. I step out the door, knowing I've possibly said goodbye forever, and hoping with a desperate fervor it isn't.

But now, on the edge of a somewhere town, waiting for a bus that might not come, if the hypobox is to be believed, at this hour, as the lazy breeze blows beer cans down the street, after all the dust settles and the candy wrappers leave sight, I lose myself in the stars. It is beautiful.

I look around with new eyes when the wind picks up again. A little more passionate about its street cleaning duties now it seems. The pale sunrise, in my nowhere town, on the edge of this somewhere kind of road. Another sad sound of beer cans rolling away. It's all so sad, and beautiful.

Where will I go next? No where. Sharpie on the glass, scratched and bold. no where.

From The Edge of A Familiar Place

I can't really say none of this isn't familiar. I know I am mostly out of my element. But in so many ways, I am in my element.

But my element of choice is mind, and I guard it like gold. Perhaps that is my problem. Locked down and guarded. So locked in my own mind, I don't experience.

Tonight, I was surrounded by beautiful girls, and was with the girl I love. What was my experience?

I experienced a California Burrito. It was pretty tasty. What was the conversation around me? Some was about food from places like Rancheritos. I can't say I remember fully.

I experienced a lovely moment with the girl I love, sitting on my lap and giving me butterfly kisses, rubbing her face on my beard, and talking in a Russian accent. 

But mostly, I experienced not knowing where to go. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing what to do. I played on my phone, to distract myself from my social anxiety (which was better than some alternatives I could have experienced, yet in so many ways, so much worse).

I did experience lovely things on the drive away. Daft Punk at night, cruising the roads in a car that is not my own, experiencing quiet lovely words, semi coherently spoken, but driven with love.

But I certainly didn't experience much tonight. I stayed in my head far too much. A lurking shadow as much as a person at the party. If I think about my experience, I can't say I was accepted. I feel like I was barely tollerated.

And this is why I don't go out much.

Guard up, defenses up, no real sense of anything. Thoughts in the way of experience.

Over-thinking: the action that kills poetry.