Time for me typically moves quite quickly, and that’s why the past fifteen months or so have been so odd, as I felt stalled here at a crossroads in the road of my life. I’ve maundered for more than a year on which direction to take, or how to correct my course, or how to do whatever thing would be required in whatever metaphor I might conjure. And I’ve ultimately gone nowhere.

It was time, and it was past time, and I was truly about to lose all hope.

To that end, some decisions are made, not in haste, but after significant consideration, then delivered quickly. The motivations for the speed of delivery can be myriad, but they typically have at least something to do with a lack of desire to prolong the obvious. It is unfortunate when such decisions countermand previous ones, but life is about survival, and sometimes survival is a harsh sentence. I was been drowning, and I had been trying to rescue myself from the flood with nothing but a collection of memories, a misplaced sense of duty, and talking too much.

Yes, I lacked even a real desire to get out of the water, or step back out onto the road, or anything. I’m brilliant like that, sometimes.

It was time, and it was past time, and the flood was carrying me away.

I could have done things differently, but I actually tried all the options I perceived over the past year, and kept coming back around to that status quo out of weakness. The necessary action was painfully obvious to me over a year ago, and that it’s taken that long to drive it home, and in such a furious fashion, is simply unfortunate. And now, as I move past those moments, I see there was never even a true crossroads: a side-alley into something quite unlike whomever I am becoming, is all there really was.

Of course, I realize that’s hindsight, but by the same token, it is what it is. That cliché has been haunting me all too much, recently.

Last year, the parting from that other one was so ragged it never really let go. So this year, the breaking had to be sheer, her contempt for me complete, and the enforced distance between us void of any real possibility of repair. I am neither pleased or proud with the darkness under which it had to be enacted, but my heart (my soul, if I have one), is lighter, and freer, for having finally done so. I have done the right thing (unfortunately, in some regards, I do not doubt), for I am no longer breathing a water tainted by inaction, insecurity, and distrust. And my own two feet are carrying me forward again: forward, past this “whatever” and into a future in which I have not forgotten myself.

There is time, and there is more time, and the clock is now wound by my own hand.

I am loved, deeply, immeasurably, by someone who sees me for what I am, who appreciates my talents and accepts my deficiencies, and doesn’t want or need me to change or redefine myself in order for her to be comfortable with me. A someone who is so remarkable as to have stood beside me through these recent upheavals, fought for me through them, and who holds to me now, rightfully expecting the deepest reciprocation.

And the only oddity now is that it took me this long. Although that, for me, really isn’t all that odd at all.

there is light, and there are questions.

there is hope, and there are discoveries.

and there are things to come: the timing of dreams, the light of doubt, and the discovery of hope.

if we are not alive to ourselves within the confines of our own minds, we live for nothing, dream for nothing, and hope for nothing. and i have become most tired with living this way, for if we are not alive to each other within the confines of our respective realities, we remake ourselves in the images of failure.

and for how long was my life like that?

in the past few months, i have been more alive than i ever was. i awoke this morning in the light of all my life, and it was no longer grey. would that i could awake every day, having fulfilled a promise made to myself long ago. would that i could go to sleep each night, confident in the fact that i have contributed the most possible.

and would that every moment could be spent in the light of you.

in days to come, i am tasked with the duty of realization. and in nights to come, certain demons must be banished.

Turbulent Saffron © 2004 (photo), 2005 (comp) Dawnne

and something completely different.

we are mesmerized by the lighted shadows, the shadowed lightnesses, and the sudden gleamings, no matter how disconnected (and all the more so if consequently irretrievable).

there is laughter in the light of the moon, and fear beneath the blazing sun.
a separation: there is naught but wandering.

reminiscences pale beneath the onslaught of the here-and-now; they fade. yellowed, grayed and musty, they depart from us slowly, though we bathe still within their subtle light. drawn to them (drawn of them), we grow, possessed still of an internal innocence that shall never grow old.

and so, begun again, that one unfortunate scream
metes the silence with all the anticipation that normality can bring to bear.

i don’t really hate it here per se. there are, at least, some really great people that i’ve met here over the past few years, and i enjoy having them in my life. theoretically, they enjoy having me in their lives as well. the only trouble with that is the fact (a very literal fact) that they are overwhelmingly from somewhere else, transplanted here just like i was. and it is they, along with my children, which constitute the only things that are keeping me here right now.

whenever i do get to leave, i know i shall have mostly good memories of this place, and certainly of these people.

mostly.

but things came together in such a way that i very much am in a holding pattern, now. how long i hold here has yet to be theorized, let alone determined. but i am waiting to leave now, and yes, the waiting for it bleeds.

but aye, some of it, i will miss. indeed. i am, after all, transformed somewhat by my experiences here.

Transformed By Evening Shadows © 2005 (photo), 2007 (comp) Dawnne

okay, i’m no longer terribly thrilled with this metaphor. let me try another.

did i ever mention i’m not terribly adept at waiting? yeah, i probably did. when that for which you wait is unwelcome, the waiting for it bleeds.

once upon a time, this is what waiting felt like for me:

Tempered Impatience © 2004 (photo), 2005 (comp) Dawnne

it may convey something different to you, and to be honest, you’ll never hear me say anything like “this is the perfect image to describe ‘waiting’, in my opinion.” this was just what waiting felt like to me at a certain time: a waiting of a certain form, when all the things being waited upon were undefined, unknowable, hidden, mysterious, unresolved. but i do keep coming back to this image at moments like this, remembering the “then”, and comparing it to the “now.” sometimes, it’s even beneficial. and at other times, it might even feel that way.

there is a sense of acuity that comes with experience: a knowledge that the things to come will be better than the things that have been, at least in retrospect, for in later years we enjoy the privilege of coloring the things that were with the knowledge we have gained from them.

on days like this, the shadows fade, and on days like this, reminiscence is a muted scream.

life walks forward down a path of its own choosing, on its own mission, at its own pace, within its own time, and i’ve known for decades the baseless futility of attempting to steer it solely for my own purposes. sometimes you have roll with what you’re given, and you otherwise work within the gaps to make it your own thing.

and i am somewhere in the gaps, or at least i try to be.

the rains of late have been a fitting backdrop for these days. my life, changing once again, gets redefined, and the world weeps. no, i don’t really think that, but it’s sometimes comforting to think that way, at least until you think about all the people affected by the flooding. so i only think about it that way when the rain is actually coming down, and i’m out in it, getting soaked.

but it’s finally getting cool enough where that’s no longer a comfortable venture.

old habits like this, they die hard. but they are dying, and not just for her. they pass away for lack of my attention, and the lack of their ability to capture it away from her.

it hasn’t been so painful as i feared.

i try (and the attempts are trials), to maintain composure, but sometimes, the way in which life coalesces merely compounds the idiosyncratic tendencies of everyone around me (or at least my perception of them) and every plan, every expectation, every hope, turn into something other than what we supposed it would be—what we had dared to dream.

fragments of other people’s songs, their lyrics, their own communion with the world: these things i use, to trace my life throughout the confluences of existence, and even to define my interrelation with the world. there was a time when those were my songs, my lyrics. for a while after the spirit died within me, i was bitter, but the music never really left me. it lingers yet.

waiting.

waiting, like so many other days in my life.

but this waiting, this moment, this churning, has a glimmer: a spark.

a recalescence.

there is something about this time, this moment, that shines. the waiting, this once, is a good thing, for i wait here, willingly, at the end of the all which never was, and the dawn of the all which might now become.

(earlier this week, I took an old draft and turned it into this. something significant had happened the previous night, which i’m not going to explain it here, but it was a good thing: one which changed the entire tenor of the original draft from July 8, which was a much darker time. i am driven by rainstorms of late, and they drive me towards a glistening light.)

on nights like this, it hollows crevices in my mind, and slowly fills them with melancholy, nostalgia, and stupidly even hope.

i am of that nature, possessed of the ability to dream, but not only to dream, to segment the dreams from the reformulated memories, the fears of what remains unknown, and the brief foreshadowing of insights i will later fail to recognize.

i don’t see everything, but what i do see, i see quite well.

which is not to say i always glean the right impression. especially when the rain comes, and then with it, the thunder and the lightning redefine every thought before i ever have a chance to set them down.

i breathe an air that is flavored with, colored by, comprised of this rain, and i remember all the things i wanted long ago, and none of them stand in my future. and no matter how deeply this rain saturates this moment and me, i come no closer to bringing them back to life.

and everyone else, having read these pages since time began, probably knows them for exactly what they are.

but there are no dreams, not truly. there are memories and a confluence of biochemical processes. there are phrases turned in wistfulness and the desire for pain to subside. and yet, a life without pain is hardly one worth living. and so the dreams, the memories, the processes all bring a pain that is both a comfort and a lie.