caveat emptor

Jumper

She lives near the top floor of a tall high-rise in an apartment her closest acquaintance once described derisively as "post-pubescent and pre-informed", words she now has tattooed in Victorian script above her left shoulder blade, sad evidence of her willingness to vandalize herself. The homeless man who watches her come and go from the post of his eternal vigil beside the mail drop box on the sidewalk far below thinks of her as Asian, though she is half Puerto Rican and half American mixto. Her window high above the street is always open, symbolizing for you the endless opportunity funded for her by her wealthy parents with whom she never speaks. "I am an artist," she lies, when people ask her what she does. In truth, she occasionally throws pieces of bread out through the open window at the unsuspecting world, but she doesn't describe herself like this because it wouldn't impress anyone as much as a fantasy of art might. Her only art is standing naked with her eyes closed and her arms upraised in front of the blast of harsh, angry guitar raging from her expensive music system, art that her neighbors all hate because, all too often, they get to hear it and feel it but they never get to see it. The violence of this music rouses something less dead in her soul, something almost alive, almost vital, if unhealthy. This music gives her the scraps of resolve she requires to throw on something too revealing and head out past the homeless man to abuse herself around town, to let others have a go at her, to crawl home to the elevator that loves her. For her, this life is an apartment in an empty world, where she's not an artist, not even Asian. For her, death is like bread falling naked to the world below, guitar music fading away far above.

Hello, friends. I hope your feet are on the ground, so to speak.

Later. Love.

Reality and Diatribe with Mushrooms

Reality left another message on my voice mail. He's been trying to get in touch with me for months now, and I keep ducking him. He was leaning against my car in the parking lot a few evenings ago, but I saw him from my office window, so I sneaked out the back way and walked to the bus stop. Reality seems to think I owe him something, but I contend that it's the other way around. If I own him some debt, I refuse to pay it. He can send his goons all he wants, I don't care any more. I'm done dealing with reality.

"I can imagine a creator," she said, "but I see no evidence that that creator wants anything specific from us. If some creator wants something from us, it should be more obvious. It would be unreasonable for a creator who created this vague, mysterious world to punish us for failing to fulfill some duty that creator didn't even bother to make plain."

"I don't want to discuss this," he said.

"And don't tell me it's written in some book. There are a million books. Which one is the one? How are we supposed to know? I contend that we live in a world created by an itinerant prankster and that he or she is long gone and never coming back. And no book was left behind, just this beautiful mess of a world, this never-ending joke."

"I didn't say anything about it," he said. "I just want to enjoy breakfast. Can we just enjoy breakfast? It's a beautiful morning."

She stared at him with evaporating intensity until her anger dissipated and her stare slid down from his eyes to his mouth to his chest and then down to the plate of pancakes that was growing cold in front of her. "It is a beautiful day," she agreed. "How is your omelette?"

"It's pretty good, especially the mushrooms."

He loves mushrooms.

Hello, friends. I hope reality is treating you well.

Later. Love.

The After

The ghost never admitted to herself that she was dead, although some part of her certainly knew it. She kept going to lunch with her friends at the tea room on Thursdays, though they didn't really include her in the conversation any more. She had been the life of the party before, but things had been different lately. She still took the bus to work every day, spent the morning in meetings, the afternoon trying to logon to computer terminals when people got up from their desks. She couldn't seem to make the mouse or keyboard work any more. Several times she'd gone down to IT and sat in the director's office and complained to him, but he ignored her. Tonight she was going out on the town. She wanted to try the new dance place her friends had mentioned. Who knows, maybe she'd even meet someone, someone who would dance with her, someone who might take her home, someone who would, at the very least, look her in the eyes and treat her like she existed. "It's just a funk I'm in," she thought. "I think it's the weather. A change of scenery will help." She couldn't feel the weather these days, and this worried her when she thought about it, so she didn't. Last night, for the first time, she hadn't even gone home. She'd just wandered around the city streets on the edge of a painful admission she couldn't bring herself to confront. All evening and night she gazed in through windows at people, a bad habit she'd picked up lately. She's standing outside the window now, wanting to come inside, wanting to talk, wanting to hold your face firmly in her hands and to force you to look deeply into her eyes and to hear you say, "Oh. It's you."

Hello, friends. Are you well? I hope so.

Later. Love.

Regarding the "Andy" Situation

The rock troll that we hired as a temp programmer, Andy, is not working out. Don't get me wrong, his work is great. It's timely and clean and well-documented. There's no problem with his work. It's just that he's not fitting in with everyone else. He doesn't fit in socially and he barely fits in physically. He looms over in the corner of the conference room during presentations and tries not to make growling noises or drool on anyone. Also, since he lives in a mud bog near the river a few blocks away, he smells awful. Just really awful. And then there's the "smokers" thing. You see, smokers have been disappearing from outside the building ever since we hired Andy, and many people believe he's been eating them. I have to admit, there's a good chance that he has. Under "Hobbies" on his application he wrote "eating smokers". I guess I shouldn't have hired him, since we have smokers in our company, but I thought the "smokers" to which he was referring were a type of sausage or something. I mean, it sounds like something English people might call sausages, doesn't it? Smokers? Anyway, I'm going to have to fire him, and I'm really not looking forward to it. I hate firing people, even if they deserve it. It's never easy or fun taking away someone's livelihood. It makes me feel bad. And with Andy it's going to be even harder. I really like Andy. There's just something about him that I relate to. I don't know what it is. Most of all, though, I dread firing him because I'm pretty sure he's going to murder and eat me in a monstrous rage. Sure, we're going to have a security guard waiting outside my office door to escort Andy out, but, I mean, what is she going to do? Andy is, like, eleven feet tall and stronger than thirty men. He could level this whole place. She's got a walkie-talkie and a flashlight. I'm doomed. I was going to call in sick, but they'll just let him stay until I get back. It won't help. I might as well get it over with. [sigh] This is why I hate management jobs. Wish me luck.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. I'm fine.

Later. Love.

This Bean, Like Us

This coffee bean is broken for you, this bean picked and roasted and shipped to where you are. This coffee bean gives everything to you, though not of its own free will. Your appetite has supplied the demand for this bean, so it was plucked from its mountain home and brought all these miles to die for you. You drink the life essence from the departing soul of this bean and you are renewed, reborn. You do this, as you should, without shame. You must be strong and brave to leap each day into the gears of this grinder we call civilization. We are, all of us, picked and roasted and consumed each day, and the aroma of our plight brightens the eyes of some larger life.

"We're not picked and roasted and consumed each day," she said.

"Not literally, no," I said.

"Are we picked and roasted and consumed each day figuratively? By whom?"

"By critics," I said. "For example."

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

P.S. - If you're reading this from my actual blog site and not some feed, I'd be interested in hearing what you think of this new layout. I got tired of the other. This one is much simpler. Thanks for stopping by.

Fate, Reggae and Whimsy

I am playing Scrabble with Fate. She is beating me badly, like she always does. She sits quietly with that troubling, knowing look. I haven't the  letters to form the words of my frustration so, seeing no better option, I pluck an "H" from my rack and turn "OURS" to "HOURS". Then she turns "MY" to "COLOSTOMY" with a triple word score for the "C", which also makes "CRAW" of "RAW" in the other direction. Then I "CRAWL" and she "XYLOPHONE"s. It continues like this until she has the last word and I perform the aftermath. "I am second," I tell her, "and you are next to last." Fate smiles.

Today reggae is playing from somewhere, and this feels right. Slow and rhythmic, simple syncopations on the downbeat, it takes no genius to feel reggae, to understand what is happening. Reggae tells you that good things are good and that bad things are bad. Reggae decries suffering and glorifies pleasure. It cries with you and dances with you. When you're paralyzed by the complex interweaving of the nuances of reality, listen to reggae. Don't think about it too much or you'll overrun it and leave it behind, you'll be bewildered and confused. Just close your eyes and count out the simple beat with the slightest nodding of your noodle. Everything is gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be alright.

Tomorrow I'm having footraces with Whimsy. I'm not optimistic about my chances for winning, but I hope at least to make Whimsy laugh.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

The Middle is Near

Most of the paths to enlightenment are too heavy for me. Everyone chooses their own path. He's into Mahayana. She's doing the Weight Watchers. Some of the brightest people I know have stopped striving for enlightenment. "This is all there is," they say. I wonder how they got so smart? I wonder how I could get that smart? Maybe I should stand on my tiptoes and hold my breath. Maybe I should put my knees behind each other. Maybe I should shave my head and follow the remains of the Grateful Dead around. "It's not the answer, it's the question, man," says the barefoot dude in the robe with the dreadlocks and the shades. Things always sound stupid when you add "man" to the end.

Then the prophet says:

In those days the clouds will wage war on the seas. Fools will trade apples for oranges. In those days seams will ride up in your hinder and you'll find no peace in repose. The buffalo will play checkers with the postmen. The rocks will melt and dirt will freeze and the heavens will default on their loans. Wise women will cry in the street, bemoaning consumer confidence and acid reflux. A child will say to his neighbor, "What has become of my innocence?" In those days hamburgers will be served without tomato. Porch lights will burn through the night. Van tires will all go flat. In those days the echoes of distant laughter will keep you awake all night. Then you will know the middle is near.

Thus spake the prophet.

Sometimes the alarm clock surprises me and I begin the day with a start. Seems like a reasonable way to begin something. Man.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well. Everything's cool.

Later. Love.

Distance and Fog

Lost in an endless thought she walks so elsewhere, weaving easily among the everything that cannot, though it try, catch her eye. She adds her wordlessness to the noise of the street, cars and others dancing complex patterns from different heres to various theres all around and she, without a sound, calls to all of them, but I'm the only one that hears. "If you follow me," she says through lips pressed ceaselessly closed, eyes looking always away, "I will take you where you never knew you wanted to go." For soft fear, for love of the painful repose of this uncomfortable chair, for conservation of potential, I sit and watch her pass, more unaware of my stare than the distant afternoon moon. The wind comes behind her and blows away the memory of her passing, only now a dream with no antecedent, disconnected from any reality. There never was this street, this day, this lovely obliviousness in the long black sweater and high winter boots. Some part of you knows that she cannot but remain so aloof. Were she ever to focus her gaze it would shatter the world.

The fog pulled himself together, came in from the cold and sat down with me for hot tea. We talked of balmy days and warm winds over the water. The fog had something on his mind, I could tell, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. So polite, our banter, and never getting to the heart of the matter. As he left he leaned in and kissed my cheek. They do that where he's from. Then he dissipated and floated away and I only saw scattered glimpses of him for many months. I hope he is okay.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. I really do.

Later. Love.

The Sun and the Snow and Here We Go Again

The sun doesn't know it's a new year, though the new year is all about the sun. It's the star of the show, as it were. There are no seasons in the sun, however. There's just fusion and heat and light and gravity. It's about our relationship with the sun, not about the sun itself. It's not inherent to the sun, is what I'm trying to say. Shine on, O sun. Shine on the wicked and the good, on the wicker and the wood, on the slicker and the hood, through the gaps in the rain clouds.

We've had snow here in Texas during this holiday season. It's been a welcome climate change. Climate change won't kill us, I guess. Not all of us, anyway. It's cold here today right now, but it will be August before you know it, and we'll all curse the heat. The heat here in August will make you question the theory of a loving god, though you'll find the idea of hell more plausible. Grass withers and ice cream runs lukewarm over your fingers if you're not quick about it. I saw a hawk perched on a snow man a couple of weeks ago. I saw a coyote in a snow drift near the new subdivision, over by the schoolyard where my son goes sometimes to dance with his friends. I've seen things you wouldn't believe, but I won't tell you about them. I've told lies in my life, but I've never intentionally killed another person. Snow falls and you cannot stop it, but it will be gone in the morning.

A little revolution once in a while is good for a planet. Here we go again, round and round the sun. And there's nothing the sun can do about it.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Growlers

All over the Midwest and even out on the coast, down south and up north, out west, back east, work boots hit the ground every morning. Tool men in pickup trucks and vans in Dickies or blue jeans. Six packs or beer guts, ironically not the same thing, hot or not, smoldering or moldering, buns of steel or plumber cracks. Caps, tuques, Stetsons, bandanas or hard hats. They sweat or freeze all day, grunting and laughing and shrugging off minor flesh wounds and sore muscles. They all turn into werewolves at night when the moon is full and rip the throats out of terrified victims, energized as much by the screams and struggles as by the warm, wet blood. Rough leather gloves and tool belts and white cotton briefs. Weaving slang, jargon and profanity into a kind of patois of manhood and extreme lesbianism. Call them if you need repair work or maybe a good schtupping, but not when the moon is full.

Hello, friends. I need you to be well. Please do so.

Later. Love.

Never Shop When You're Broken

People have to shop for groceries sometimes, existential crises notwithstanding. Many an enlightenment has occurred, cart handle in hand, on the bread aisle or at the butcher counter. Will you stick with whole foods, unprocessed meats and produce, or will you fill your cart with plastic- and cardboard-wrapped food products that robots put together on conveyor belts? This may depend upon the state of your particular identity crisis, your psychosocial struggle of the day. She had been thinking, ever since he'd stopped talking and slammed the door on his way out and left her there pain-stunned into silence, about the patterns of her life that had conditioned her to just stand and absorb spite and vitriol and violence and accusation. She grabbed a bread that claimed to contain seven whole grains, though if pushed she couldn't have named more than two different grains, and one of them wouldn't even have been a true grain. Memories of her childhood family, loving if a bit aloof and distracted, provided no obvious reasons, no excuses. What should she have said to him? What could she have said to counter his condemnation? The fragile shell of civilization that we live in requires that you hold it together in the supermarket. When I pass your cart I don't want to see you trembling, your chin scrunching into that shaking-and-drawn-down-about-to-cry shape. I don't want to see the first tear fall from the building pool in your bottom eyelid and roll down your cheek into the crease in your nose. I'm not made of stone, after all, and I've got shopping to do. She first lost it altogether in the cosmetics aisle. It began with one spontaneous and unexpected gasping sob, and then she clasped her hand over her mouth and held her breath for a moment, terrified of falling apart here. Anywhere but here. Despite her best efforts, however, her back began to spasm and her mouth tore open with three of those loud, croaking sobs, the kind that you make when you're trying not to cry. Then she just had to cry to make the noises stop. Two younger men started to turn down the aisle and then stopped short and turned quickly in mortal social terror. To complete her consumer humiliation, her knees buckled and she crumpled to the floor, sobbing like she hadn't since childhood. The Thomasons, a couple in their sixties, she his second wife and he her fourth husband, had only come to the store for cat food. Instead of a push cart, he carried one of those hand-baskets. It was Beverly Thomason who knelt, despite her arthritis, beside her and put a hand on her back, patting and saying, "What's this now? It's going to be alright. Oh dear. What's this about?" Arthur Thomason stood there, his first trip into the cosmetic aisle, and glanced around at products that were mostly mysterious to him. "Are you okay, dear? My goodness. You're breaking my heart like this. Don't cry, dear." Beverly's eyes moistened with terrible empathy and, putting a hand on each of her shoulders, she persuaded the younger woman up and into her arms, each looking over the shoulder of the other. Arthur thought about going to get the cat food, but decided it would be inappropriate. "It's okay, dear. My goodness." It was the supermarket and the two women held each other and cried. James Taylor sang over the store PA system. She wondered if maybe he was right. Maybe she deserved all of this. "Please don't cry," Beverly sniffed. "You're just breaking my heart."

Hello, friends. It really will be okay. Don't you think?

Later. Love.

Quality in the Dearth of Quantity

The obvious truth was so heavy in the room, stifling and oppressive, so we all just lied to each other. It seemed the only humane thing to do.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well, or will be soon.

Later. Love.

Clever Lies and Unwilling Metaphors

I constantly have to remind myself that well-said often masquerades as true. Sometimes that resonance you feel with the words of another are just an appreciation of form, a purely aesthetic vibe. Don't let your passion for words become credulity. A little salt, just a grain, almost always helps, metaphoristicallywise.

This is a segue. Trust me.

Standing on the highway, thumb out, I begin to realize that the highway is just a metaphor, that I'm just figurative, a figure, illustrating something else to someone else. They are the real and I am just a symbol. When the car comes, therefore, I get in, signifying something else, I suppose. The driver asks me where I'm going. I say forward. He pulls out and turns on the radio. After a few minutes I ask him if he knows what we stand for. Like, to the real world, I clarify. He says if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything. I've heard that one before. It's clever, but that doesn't mean it's true. Frustrated, I turn and shoot the bird at the sky. Factor that into your symbolism, reality. Whatever you hope for me to signify I refuse to stand for it. Looking over at the driver guy I wish to myself we were a mixed metaphor. He just keeps driving, heading forward.

Hello, friends. Seriously, I think we're all going to be okay. I could be wrong, but I have this feeling.

Later. Love.

Penultimate Words. Love in the Time of Rockets.

I have developed, in the past five minutes, a curiosity about the penultimate words of dead people of note. It occurs to me, extremely recently, that last words are often words of regret. In those cases, I suspect, penultimate words are often regrettable words, or the expression of regrettable actions. Of course, I am making certain assumptions here. No doubt there are many times when penultimate words are orthogonal to history, irrelevant to legacy. My interest in this topic is quickly waning, soon to be forgotten altogether. As a last gasp of attention span, I am wondering what my penultimate words will be just before I die. And now it's done. I've lost interest in the question.

Moving on.

She asked me a question about love in the time of rockets. I asked her if she meant modern times, space exploration and whatnot. She said not exactly, that she meant the future, light speed and whatnot. Would people still love each other? I said I didn't see why not. She said she was worried about it. She rubbed the tip of her thumb over her other fingertips, back and forth, a nervous habit of hers. I said I think it will be okay. I told her I'm not even sure there ever will be such a time, a time of rockets. I've long suspected futurists are wrong about this. She smiled at me but seemed unconvinced. The hard, night rain thumped on our tent like a million falling stars, tiny and wet falling stars. This was in November, just before she left for the penultimate time.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Aren't you?

Later. Love.

If Only I Weren't So Big

In the dream we were at a craggy shore where the waves lapped shallow and gentle at the base of a natural three foot seawall of slowly eroding stony earth. The cold water was clear. Smooth, round stones of greys and browns, each about the size of a fist, covered the ground that was, at the shore, just a couple of inches below the undulating surface but sloped slowly down to the darker depths farther out. You and I were there. I was wading barefoot, my jeans rolled up to my knees, in the cold water. You were cupped in my hand, but you wanted to play in the shallow water near the stony wall. You implored me to put you down, but I was afraid because you were impossibly small. Not like a hamster or even an acorn. You were like a spec of dust. Not even like a grain of rice. You could have carved a comfortable two-story home out of a grain of rice. You were the tiniest spec of a loved one, a mote I held most precious, and you begged to be allowed to play in the gentle, cool water.

"I'll lose you," I said.

"It's not fair," you cried in your tiny, tiny voice.

"You'll float away. If I even blink I'll never be able to find you again. A tiny plankton will gobble you up."

"I'll be fine," you insisted. "You don't have to find me. I'll find you," you argued.

"I just can't," I said. "I'm sorry. You're too small. Just stay in my hand."

But, to my horror, you leapt with a "Wheeee!" from my hand. You didn't even make a splash. I stood, frozen lest I crush you, a cried out your name over and over. I could hear your tiny laughter below, but I couldn't see where you were.

Then I woke up.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Still Life of Fog, Hawk, Me, Rabbit

Fog means the painters didn't finish in time this morning. If you blew it away you would see the colorless outlines of this world that they make up as they go along, made fresh daily, wet paint. If you're not careful you'll get the world all over your hands and it will never come off, until they repaint your hands tonight while you sleep.

This morning I watched, just visible through the fog, a hawk light on a freeway exit sign. It made me curious, once again, if birds ever wonder to themselves, "What the hell is this thing on which I'm perched?" Exit signs, billboards, telephone poles, microwave relay towers, traffic lights, golden arches, street lights. What are these things? Perhaps, however, birds aren't so scientific or observant. Maybe they wonder the same things about trees and craggy mountain cliffs. "What is this world?" they wonder. "Where did it come from? Is that a rabbit?"

I'm sitting on this chair by the window, looking out at the dissipating fog. I know what the chair is, and I know what the fog is. I even know what a microwave relay tower is. I mostly wonder why. And sometimes I wonder what other animals wonder. I'm so easily distracted by all the things I know and all the things I wonder. I wonder what a rabbit thinks as the ground disappears below it, sharp pain of talons in its back and sides, just before everything goes black. Mark that rabbit off the list, boys. We won't be painting him tomorrow.

Hello, friends. How are you?

Later. Love.

Google. Mary Oliver. The Place. Mary Oliver Again.

Google is becoming more and more powerful. They are getting closer and closer to the ultimate feature, the one for which I have been waiting for years. Very soon now Google will be able to contact me and tell me what I'm looking for. Most days I just sit for hours staring at the empty search box, wondering what it is that I really need to find. Google is working furiously to fulfill this need for me. Anyone can tell me the answer. Google will tell me the question.

I don't know. I keep remembering what Mary Oliver said, "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." I believe that. I do. And then I think:

In the fading negative image that I see emblazoned on the back of my eyelids when I press my eyes shut and block out the distraction of everything else, I can see the disappearing visual memory of the place I came from, the forgotten place from which I started this journey. I have a suspicion that I have to find that place again, but it's hard to tell from this vanishing silhouette of colors on black where the place might be. I think there is a large tree, and a hill in the distance. Maybe a river bank or the shore of a lake. I can't quite make it out. Maybe I left the directions for this life, if there were any, beneath that tree. If I ever find the place again, I wonder if the instructions will still be there.

And Mary Oliver says: "Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Talking the Wrong Talk When No Talk is Right

The world has been overtaken by undertakers. They did it for the word play, I bet.

That's not what I came here to talk to you about, but I thought you should know, nonetheless. And now, the wrong talk.

I came to talk about the sometimes, squish bones sigh into the chair, laughing or crying too softly to be for sure. Never to be for sure for sure. Do you ever think the think you cannot say, wrapped up in picture feeling, ideas no word can word? No right word can talk it? Looking up into the sky this way I am there, the world far below, waxy wings drooping and dropping to the welcoming ground arms, laughing all the way down because you'll catch me, soft and strong and splash below the surface you'll catch me wet and smile, like your eyes can only smile, no other eyes, you smile. This is why we fall, to be caught. Falling together I'll catch you and you'll catch me. It works that way. Oh yes, today it works that way here with us. Because I know joy will last as long as needs, until the last time, the final work no more. When I imagine the smoky day far away, the end of everything, I always imagine lips in a smile, a knowing wink. Then the end, just the way we thought. Then falling into the next. Catch me.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.

Prelude to a Regret

Sitting outside the cafe with the smokers and going over in his mind, once again, the greeting he had practiced, the greeting he had actually written on paper and memorized, the greeting he had determined to be casual and non-threatening and non-creepy, he watched over the top the book he was pretending to read as she walked past him, like she had every day for more than a year, and got into her car. As she drove away his eyes hovered on the spot where her car had been until, losing energy while the back of his throat tightened with disappointment, his eyes sank slowly down to the words on the book in front of his face and refocused on their strangeness. It took him a few confused seconds to realize that the letters were not the script of some unknown foreign language, they were just upside-down.

"As long as we breathe we draw in both regret and joy," said the moth on the window behind his head, trying to comfort him. Unfortunately, he didn't speak moth.

Hello, friends.

Later. Love.

"The Same Déjà Vu" or "Perspective's Fool"

The days, as they pass by one by one by one, are not identical. They have their own happenings, their own experiences. The days are not the same, but they share something. One might say they rhyme. My life is a rhyming pattern, rarely broken. AAAAABBAAAAABBAAAAABB. I think I have Henry Ford to thank, and I offer him such gratitude as I have. These days in poetry the pros rarely bother with rhyme for some reason. But these days, my days, share a quality I call rhyme. Monday and Doomsday and Everyday and Tuesday and Someday and Holiday and Yesterday and Friday. And as I drive down the same highway or sit in the same conference room or talk to the same people or listen to the same music I think to myself, "Haven't I felt this same déjà vu before?" And then I realize it's not the same. There are variations, however slight. "It rhymes," I think to myself. "Today rhymes with yesterday."

And then I think: The sun and the moon are far more different than we have given them credit for. We treat them like sisters, one for the day and one for the night. The sun and the moon, however, have never met. The day and the night, they both belong to the sun, shining down either light or shadow. The moon lives only to sing to the water, day or night. But we treat them like two sides of the same coin. We are perspective's fool.

Like yesterday. Like tomorrow. I don't know.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well. Are you?

Later. Love.