By Nous

                          June 15, 2003


I considered the consequences.
I suppose that it has only been recently that I have felt as if I were
trapped in an impressionist painting, but this kind of feeling has a
sense of forever attached to it.
Someone not too long ago said that maybe life is a journey back to the
child we once were.  Sloth said he didn't think so.  I'm not too sure
myself, and maybe it is just this impressionistic world that gives me
that idea.
Lately, I have felt as if the people around me are fluctuating.  That
is, springing back and forth between two states:  what they once were,
and what they are now.  So, you have this inner movement against that
which cannot be changed, unwittingly giving the impression of change,
and unwittingly conveying the false idea that if one is not moving,
then he is a failure.
But this is an illusion, caused by all of the superfluous movement.
Here, though, is the striking thought:  what if I'm the one flailing 
in vain?
This feeling of movement may just be my own tethered soul hopelessly
thrashing against waves of immutability.  In this case, the sense of
motion would be caused by myself and no one else.
Sub-thought:  Where do we want to go?

I considered the consequences.
Driving by a little house on my way home from renting some movies, I
remembered a scene that this very house held once. I remembered driving
by that house and seeing an entire family huddled before a warm grill,
waiting for dinner on a cold night, swaddled in scarves and sweaters.
I remembered thinking how beautiful it was, and how sad.  
Beauty and sadness often go together.
But passing by the same house today, I saw no family, no grill, no 
dinner.  And it was beautiful, and sad.
The night was violet again.
Not long ago, I would have marveled at this beauty.  But you know how
things change.  Or maybe you don't, and thats what I feel now.
I feel like an ever-changing being in a permanent world.
I feel like a flame.
There exists a beautiful part of the day that I saw for the first time
last summer.
One morning, after having stayed up all night, I stepped out of my room
and stared out of this long window by my door, watching the sun rise.
As the pink faded out of the sky, I suddenly felt incredibly tired, and
decided to go to bed.  But then I noticed something.
Quiet.
I looked out of the window and saw stillness.
Birds, clouds, leaves - all seemed to be lost in sleep.
It was morning, but nothing was stirring.
The Afterdawn.
And then slowly, a trickle of sound eased into the world and erupted
into noise.  And the day began.
Perhaps the magical sensation of that time is directly proportional
to how little sleep I had received.
There is a Spanish word for sleep-deprived.
"Desbelado."
Though having that meaning, it has a more subtle meaning which I like.
A "bela" is a candle.  So, "belado" would mean "candled".
"Des", being a prefix meaning "dis" or "un", would make the word mean
"uncandled".
I find this the best meaning of the word I can find.  Because when I'm
"sleep-deprived", I don't really feel deprived, I just feel different.
I feel extinguished, but as if I don't really need to be lit again.
A candle doesn't need a flame.
As if I've been walking around all night and then, someone blows out
the candle inside me and says, "Time for sleep."
Ramble on, Nous.

I considered the consequences.
My mother has lost her love.
Uncandled.