While Musing Over Art on the Walls
© Rachel C
So, I can’t concentrate. Not on Islam, not on research papers, at least. I wish it were still raining. It has been raining for maybe months, and I can’t grow tired of it. I can’t, and I won’t. Times like this, sounding so cliché, I realize maybe I don’t want to venture back to Chicago. Maybe I want to try again, start again in Seattle. The rain, the buildings, the personality—I can’t deny I am drawn to the idea of the city. But, Chicago is so comfortable. I know it, I almost understand how it moves, I can almost feel it. The strangest things remind me of it. Moments I never living in Chicago instantly leave me with the smell of the streets and the feel of the air. I want to be back there, with people I know are my friends—and some I’m not so sure of anymore. I’d love to be back there, living my life again, like I am not living it here. I would love to feel that irresistible happiness again. And yet, could I find it, on greater scale, more realistically in Seattle? I don’t know if I will ever have that answer. If I will ever feel that surge of blindness, that overwhelming, body consuming happiness that surrounds me while I walk through city streets—buildings so tall I am both small and greater than I have ever been all at the same moment. So small that I have worth, I have meaning, I am someone and no one, no one surrounded by nobodies, and happy for it. I don’t know that I will ever have that answer. Maybe I should just concede, stop thinking and sip my coffee. Sip my coffee and wait for the rain.
June 17, 2007
There'd Be Nobody if We All Stayed Alone
© Rachel C
So, I can’t concentrate. Not on Islam, not on research papers, at least. I wish it were still raining. It has been raining for maybe months, and I can’t grow tired of it. I can’t, and I won’t. Times like this, sounding so cliché, I realize maybe I don’t want to venture back to Chicago. Maybe I want to try again, start again in Seattle. The rain, the buildings, the personality—I can’t deny I am drawn to the idea of the city. But, Chicago is so comfortable. I know it, I almost understand how it moves, I can almost feel it. The strangest things remind me of it. Moments I never living in Chicago instantly leave me with the smell of the streets and the feel of the air. I want to be back there, with people I know are my friends—and some I’m not so sure of anymore. I’d love to be back there, living my life again, like I am not living it here. I would love to feel that irresistible happiness again. And yet, could I find it, on greater scale, more realistically in Seattle? I don’t know if I will ever have that answer. If I will ever feel that surge of blindness, that overwhelming, body consuming happiness that surrounds me while I walk through city streets—buildings so tall I am both small and greater than I have ever been all at the same moment. So small that I have worth, I have meaning, I am someone and no one, no one surrounded by nobodies, and happy for it. I don’t know that I will ever have that answer. Maybe I should just concede, stop thinking and sip my coffee. Sip my coffee and wait for the rain.
June 17, 2007
There'd Be Nobody if We All Stayed Alone
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