observation 309.24.02

So I was at a stoplight today. The afternoon sunlight was raking lean shadows of trees and buildings across the winter street. The sky was bright and blue and the clouds were a thin, lacy veil of wisps slowly rippling and shifting in the sky. I couldn't figure out if they looked more like wind-swept sanddunes or a drying beach's edging as the tide and the moon pulled the water back out to the sea where it began. Then I realized that it didn't make a difference either way. It was nice, just leave it.

So, I look in the rearview mirror. Check my lips, my teeth, my nose. It reminds me of my mother. "Thank God it doesn't happen all at once overnight," as she gently pulled the softening skin around her eyes so dark sometimes. Picking and arranging and rearranging her hair just so, with one final quick inspection, then acceptance. It could be worse, it should be worse by now, I always say to myself. It comforts me that I remember things like that about my mom and apply them to myself as if I were her, myself.

"Holy animation, what’s a human, what’s a lifetime?
All the angels, praying for me, I’m only human
For a lifetime, what’s a lifetime, if you love me?
For a lifetime, you said you’d love me."

So apparently I was paying attention in class.

Anyhow, so I'm checking "me" out in the mirror and catch a glimpse of the two people in the car behind me. Nothing special, just a white (insert model and make here, they all look alike) car. But I couldn't see her face. Just saw his smiling face turned in her direction. That's because she had a camera for a face. New camera for Christmas, I guess. And she was looking though the tiny frame of it at the world, and she was smiling sweetly. Try that. Look through the frame viewer of a camera every now and then, and the whole world looks different, smaller, more managable, and easily captured as art in an instant. Yours to keep in a few megabytes, or forget it and delete it if it's not quite right and doesn't suit you.

And right on cue, the restless feeling poked around in my ribcage.

"Mass producing, more affection, for a human,
For a lifetime, many lifetimes, for a human,
Is it human to, know your...your lifetimes?
What’s a lifetime, if you love me?
What’s a lifetime, if you can’t love me?"

She turned the camera to him and he made the "this is my sexy face if you're taking that picture" move. They both laughed, and for a moment, I felt the love between the two of them. I was happy and sad for them at the same time, wondering which one of them would grow old and die first if they didn't break up years before because one of the two outgrew the other and bored the other one shitless on an average day: A nice, calm day, so average that you feel like a walking graveyard, unable to feel pain or death. Compound that boneyard fracture knowing that you should be happy, then hey, you can feel guilt, at the very least.

But luckily, most beings don't think, they just exist. Unfortunately, I'm not most beings. No big deal. So I've learned to force myself to look back in the mirror and see the happiness for what it's supposed to be: A beautiful moment in an imperfect, human lifetime.

I wish something would tell me why I am here though and not string it out over a lifetime. I keep looking. I'm finding more answers.

"Sacred introduction, to a human, to a lifetime,
Elevation, turns emotions, into humans
Into lifetimes, what’s a lifetime, if you love me?
For a lifetime, you said you’d love me"

- pm dawn