The View from Here

I walked upstairs in the darkness and felt the chill of the cool autumn air on my fingers as I turned the dimmer switch on to allow myself easier navigation of the room.  I almost never look at the stage, only at where the audience is supposed to sit.  I am not afraid of the stage.  Silently I made my way across the floor and to the fire escape.  I stepped onto the fire escape and lit my cigarette...

I wish that people could see and perceive things the way that I sometimes do...I've been thinking a lot lately.  ...about everything, really.  From atoms and space travel to people and weather...and coordination and how much I want to watch the sunset.  ...actually, I really long to watch the sun rise, but if we're being honest here, the chances of my getting up early enough for that are slim to none.

I've been reading recently, working on the book Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.  It makes me think about travel and deception and all sorts of other things... it makes me think about how towns are built.  ...and how without knowing it, really, humans have developed and continue to develop everything based on the simplest patterns in nature (as I said, I have been thinking a lot lately).

 I feel that through this book I have been given the perspective of how everything is just a bigger or smaller copy of something else.  I look at rush hour traffic and see clogged arteries, or Paul Brown Stadium and see something like a spleen.  ...or any other sort of organ, I suppose.  I see people changing because the weather is changing... I see the leaves changing color on the trees because the cooler weather doesn't allow for them to hold their chlorophyl like the summer weather.

Every cigarette burns like the last.  Every plume of smoke blows with the same patterns...but not every moment is the same.  Some sunsets are more beautiful than others.  Some trees do not lose their leaves.  Even veins change...atoms change and collide and bond to make complex things.  I would like to be one of those complex things.

I love that the world is not a perfect circle.  I love that gravitational pull will slowly pull the earth closer to the sun forever.  ...I like that the sun will someday go out and make a beautiful show for some other people looking at our star from a zillion miles away.

I saw a commercial the other day for a product that allows for the motion of someone's hand to control electronic devices.  In that instant, I tried to capture all of the crazy things I've seen in my life, technology wise.  I've seen movie theaters go from giant venues to my hand.  I've seen knowledge move from mouths and libraries to cables underground and some wavelength that I cannot perceive...I've also seen every bit of electricity in a cloud...but that's another story.  I can't imagine the great things that  I will see in my life.

As I put out my cigarette and watch the still glowing ashes fall through time and space to the ground below, I wish once more that everyone could see what I could...