Chronological Nonsense and a Moment of Fall

I dressed for mid-October, though it is mid-November, and I’ve found myself in mid-May. I have excused myself from my desk – a place where seasons have no meaning except during those first and last two minutes of the day when we add or remove layers – because my walk to the train indicated an opportunity to sit and read in the park. And so, here I am. Sitting in the park, autumn sun filling me like water does to a parched sponge. I think of you because I always think of you and because I am warm, a feeling I have come to associate with being in your arms.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a love story, of which my opinion wavered in and out of favor. Today, warm and reading the final chapters, I am immersed. The story has become inseparable from our own. That a year ago today I was taking in the same sounds of crushed leaves and the same spectrum of burnt fall colors, and also the first taste of you, the first feel of your arm holding my frame to your chest, the first blurry gaze of you asleep on my pillow, probably has a lot to do with why I can’t stop imagining this day as if you were by my side.

I am calm for the first time all month. Blissfully calm. Stomach-completely-pit-free calm. I am outside of myself, hovering above everything, detached from my life and my worries and my uncertainty. I am both wholly present and wholly absent. I sit and observe my surroundings, breathe them in, bear witness to life unfolding. I am lost in the beauty of the scene – the soft afternoon light filtering through the not-yet-bare branches and reflecting off the wake of the ducks and geese eager to rescue crumbs and crusts from their certain drowning.

Crushed Velvet Insulation

My minds feels as though it's wrapped in crushed velvet, a fabric I've always associated with a discreet form of violence because when I touch it the wrong way, go against the grain, each thread attacks my finger like a dull arrow shot from too far away.  I'm of the opinion that a boa constrictor could do damaging things with crushed velvet if it found a way to make its threads sharp.

The layer allows my thoughts to float and mute themselves: my words are slow and my motions diverted. I have to work just a little harder than usual to do usual things. My alarms are in pairs, my coffees in trios, my spills anticipated, my knees permanently bruised. Yet, nothing is out of place. My hair and teeth are brushed, my face and sheets washed, my coffee and bed made. The bills are paid, the week is planned, checks signed, groceries bought, schedule adhered to. The routine is set, and I am not off-track, off-beat or off-kilter. But Ms. Clavel with her French accent and her habit is tearing through my veins, fretting about nothing concrete, muttering her catch-phrase.

You're right, madame, something is not right. My mind is not held hostage by unfinished thoughts. They seem to be, quite obstinately, jointly hosting tea parties, getting comfortable with staying somewhere before complete.

Dear brain, things are about to get wildly uncomfortable.