Close Your Eyes To Die With The Sun

I’ll tell you what I’ve got, if you’ll tell me what you’re hiding. We aren’t without our pleasures, I remember hearing a Japanese rap song for the first time on a bus trip one afternoon in a town far away, I was accompanying a friend as they had an escape for the weekend mentality, escape to or from what? But it’s not a bad memory, I saw purple lightning as it came in from the ocean, taking refuge in the crest of a sand dune, low to the ground with squinted eyes as the rain pounded loud as could be with the hood of my jacket on, minor comfort for terrible noise, I remember not thinking, there is something quietening about nature, it’s such a horrible cliche these days, appropriated by corporate types too, staring at a printed picture in the cubicle to ‘refresh the mind’ which is surely something of an inherent criticism about the nature of the work, no matter how beautiful the scenery there is no way to replicate that sense of atmosphere, that sense of connection which comes with having being there, anyhow it’s not so much the individual qualities of a scene that makes it beautiful, but rather how it affects you, the qualities you feel in it, an A4 sized picture of redwoods and mountains is always going to have the affecting properties of an A4 sized picture of redwoods and mountains. 

Would you believe I’ve got off topic.

It would be nice to be able to offer my comfort to others, complicated words and rhymes that are passed from person to person. For me, dusk is the most beautiful part of the day, it’s a time where there are colours that exist only for a few moments each day.

I’d like to think I’d smile, if I saw her. I practice it sometimes, I have for years now, the reaction, the look on my face, when she would turn up and I’d have an explanation, I pictured her long shadow reaching the shade of the trees meters before she does, brilliant gold and red light along the length of the horizon, light wind and then I’d smile casually, no words, I never could pick the words, no exclamations, no questions about where, just a casual smile, because then, at that time, I would have all the information I didn’t before, my eyes and my thoughts would be focused on the same thing, and then I’d know that nothing could ever be so wrong, so bad, that I’d need to ask her those questions again.

Childish aren’t I?

We aren’t given many chances.

During the road trip just recently a rainbow appeared in the sky, the land was flat and the horizons were enormous distances away, the rainbow travelled along in the sky with us as we drove, the clouds, vast in the sky, the size of suburbs, all felt as though they had a weight to them. I pulled the car into a dirt track road to stop and enjoy the view.

I only intended to stop for a moment, to get a picture of the rainbow, the widest I’ve ever seen, but I got drawn in, Brent and Natalie were talking next to the car and I walked off down the dirt road, I wasn’t going to go far, I just wanted to see the land, walk the land, as I’d never been anywhere like it. It was so beautiful, honestly, I can never describe a scene the way I’ve felt it, but it’s like an emotion isn’t it? All beautiful things elicit it, this intrinsic comprehension, a quietening and elation at the same, this deep powerful satisfaction.

I know it’s a cliche but the best way to understand it is if you think of beauty as an emotion. I want, I always want, everyone to be able to see the same things I see, I want them to know the same thing I’m feeling, beautiful things ought to be shared. You see so much suffering, just being a normal human, weakness and exposition, terror and fear, uncertainty, stress, depression, these are normal parts of a life, each day as is our nature we go and engage with others to achieve our ends, in education, work and social settings, everyday is made up of dozens of interactions in which we have to demonstrate ourselves, our minds, to others, because, bizarrely, we want to, we want to try and prove our own credibility, it’s an amazing trait, certainly in it’s sophistication it’s unique to humans, it’s our culture. 

Some people live more in the mind than others, some people end up in the minds of others as they’re nowhere else to be found.

When I came back along the track I was lost in thought wondering whether I’m getting to be too old, too silly, to be doing things like holding out my left hand as I walk along, just in case Fiona was there and wanted to accompany me, wanted a guide. Silly questions, can ghosts travel? Do they age? How much do I have to want her to be there for it to work? All these silly thoughts which were interrupted when I saw Brent and Natalie back at the car. He suddenly dashed across the highway to pick her a flower on the other side, her eyes totally fixed on him the whole time, he brought it back to her, neither of them noticed I was standing meters away, he handed her the flower and smiled and she took it and then put it in his hair, he smiled wider and leant in to kiss her.

Love isn’t in the gestures, it’s in the responses.

I took a picture of them during this, which they didn’t notice, I told them that they looked as happy as I had ever seen them, Brent noticeably so, we’ve known each other about 11 years now, I had never seen him smile that way before and he’s already been married once. As I told them this they interjected and said that they took a picture of me on Natalie’s camera as I walked off, so we decided to swap pictures. 

The picture was of me with my back to the sun, as I disappeared behind a row of trees, but, what caught my eye was a shadow lain across the ground, which extended from height of my left hand to the cover of the trees.