A Letter (Sept 4 2009)

Dearest,

It's raining like never before. It's so beautiful. The sky is like a layer cake in grays and lemon yellow, pale and sad. I'm perched up here, sipping my lebanese coffee and just watching it all fall in the sweet, downcast silence of the afternoon. Lately, I like to just be at home without music playing. Just to have the peacefulness of the day; that clean, clear gap around four o'clock when there's no one else around - I shut my eyes and I try to hear as many sounds as I can:

- Rain on the roof, on the street, on the trees
- Cars going slowly by in the puddles on the road
- Birds eep-ing, hiding in their nests. I imagine them nuzzling each other for warmth, little
ones tucked under wing
- The plants - flaxes in the front yard, lapping up the rain with thirsty tongues
- the sound of sunlight breaking like sheet diamond through the clouds on the horizon, sounds
something like silent thunder

I had thought to myself, "imagination's gone". I look down to count the knots in my stomach and think "this day... sometimes it feels like this goddamn day is like driving arrows in to the dirt.
There is no purpose to this! how many times should one ask themselves 'what the fuck am I doing with my life'? before they get on with it. I am forever asking myself this question. It's a loop". I look out the window and the rain is bleeding down the pane. I look out the window and I search for a rainbow - Kerouac says 'What is a rainbow, Lord? A hoop for the lowly'. I stumble and choke over the beauty of that phrase. It grabs me and shakes me and makes me know that life is for living. Keep Going.

On these days when I feel overwhlmed by the bleakest, darkest feelings, I know it's time for a shake up. The winds of change, as they say, will inevitably blow through this dusty place, dragging all things lying lazily about to a swift end at a high cliff, leaving the tiles, walls and wooden shelves clean... ready for a bit of a sweep, then a deep breath and start again... futility forgotten. I want these days to be filled with bright colours. Hot Air Balloons of hope elegantly traversing the skies of my life and brilliant adjectives and adverbs gracing the pages of my days. Swirling lights and movement, strong winds on tops of hills in a rainstorm, clandestine kisses in such moments, desperate and holy and transcendental - moving me - sending my stomach in to a flurry, like it may be chasing it's own tail up in to a tornado.
My wild-fire nature will flare and rise from the pit, orange and yellow and white, climbing so high it will reach the stratosphere where the sky is at its most midnight blue, I will throw my arms of flame up! IN to the air! and praise the creation below... Oh! the colours I can see from up high. Inexplicable! The seven sisters smiling down on me and winking at each other "She's figured it out again"! -"Let's help her hold on to it this time". So - charmed by the stars that look on, I will convert this gray husk of a life in to a brave aura of strong colours; every word I breathe out will be a stream of incredible light - My arrows! My arrows! Piercing the clouds like the sun!