Infinite Loop

Its one of those days.  I wake up, and wonder why I can't see.  It's been so long since I've not worn contact lenses, that I forget I have to actually put glasses on my face.  Although I haven't heard the song for years, 'Dust in the Wind' is stuck on repeat in the ipod in my brain.  I sit up in my bed.  Grab my glasses and slide them up my face.  I open my eyes slowly, accepting that they're going to have to be open for a long time now.

(I close my eyes...)

FLASH

Oh no.  Not again.  This has been happening to me a lot recently.  Very recently in fact.  Just the past couple weeks.  I think the first time was after R&J closed.  It doesn't hurt.  It hasn't proven to be dangerous at all.  It's just...

So goddamned distracting.

Much like Billy Pilgrim, I have noticed, I'm becoming less and less "stuck" in time.  I'm walking up and down my own personal time track.

(Only for a moment, and the moment's gone...)

Nothing I can do really.  Get out of bed, and head into the shower.  I like to get into it before it actually heats up.  I mean really I hate it...but it helps.  That cold blast that jerks me awake, and eases me into something warmer.

(All my dreams, pass before my eyes in curiosity)

God that song is annoying.

I push the "next" button on my brain ipod, but 'Dust in the Wind' simply starts over.

FLASH

I'm 17 years old, standing alone on the third highest mountain in the State of Utah.  Gilbert's Peak. At over 13000 feet I can see a million miles in every direction.  The Sierra Club, an Environmental organization has placed on the highest mountains in the US, a glass jar with a small notebook and pencil placed inside, buried under a small pillar of rocks.  The purpose of course is that once you reach the summit you can write your name in the book.  I open the bottle and pull out the notebook and pencil.  I open it up to the first available space...I only had to turn one page.  Three names above mine, and dated twenty years earlier, I see my dad's name.  I realize as I look out at the vast emptiness in every direction that I am among an exclusive group of people who have ever occupied this space.  I wish I could stay here til night, so I can see the stars from here, but climbing down this mountain in the dark is not only stupid, but perilously so.

FLASH

I turn off the water and step out of the shower.  I reach for a towel that isn't there, decide to just stand and drip for a moment.  I really should be taking this day with more urgency.  In order to get to work on time, I only have about 7 more minutes before I have to be walking out the door.  Fuck it.

(Same old song...)

I practically walk into my clothes.  I doesn't matter what I wear.  I send out my silent thanks to all the gods and goddesses that its not khakis and a red tshirt.

FLASH

I'm putting my name in the notebook on top of Red Castle.

FLASH

I'm putting my name in the notebook on top of Mt. Tokewana.

FLASH

I'm on TRAX checking my FB at 7 in the morning.  As if any of my friends were actually up and active that early.  I tend to socialize most with those who share a fondness of the things that happen when the sun goes down.

(Just a drop of water in an endless sea)

FLASH

I'm 8 years old, laying on the ground.  My arm doesn't hurt, it simply feels funny.  I've fallen on it.  When I get up and take a look is when the fear strikes.  I don't remember the pain, but I will never forget the fear.  It was twisted at a horrible angle.  From wrist to elbow, shattered in three places.  Horribly disfigured, my immediate thought was, that I was doomed to live out the rest of my life like this.  I lost it.  My father picked me up off the ground and carried me to the car.  Taking me straight to the (very) small town doctor, who informed us, there was nothing he could do, but give me a shot for the pain.  I was going to have to go to Evanston to have it fixed.  Once there, we were told we would actually have to go all the way to SLC.  Arm broken at 4 p.m.  No one to really take a look at it or set things right til 11 p.m.   I watch my mom go pale, and have to sit down when they snap it back in place.  After that, I would have to wear a cast well past the start of the new school year.  Which I did.

FLASH

I'm walking toward work from the train and think I hear something behind me.  I turn, but there is nothing but my shadow striding behind me.

(I will show you fear in a handful of dust)

Hey...all RIGHT.  Nothing like a little bit of classic poetry to maybe break a song rut.

(All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see)

Goddammit.

FLASH

I'm 10 years old, in the backseat of the car, travelling to SLC again.  All along the way my mom is asking me to read the street signs as soon as I can see them.  I do.  She's talking quietly to my dad, but I can still hear easy enough.
"I think he needs glasses" she says.
My dad only kind of mumbles.  I try to convince myself that I don't need glasses.  I can see just fine.  I am not convinced by my own lie.  Three weeks later, I audibly gasp when I look at the board my teacher is writing on, and I can see everything she put there.  Its amazing how you don't realize you're blind, until you're not anymore.

FLASH

I'm clocking in at work.  Staring around the warehouse at the hundreds of boxes piled high against every wall, and across the floor.  So much counting.  This is what I do now.  I count things.  New product.  Old product.  Every day for eight hours.  I'm thrilled to do it, because they let me go home before the night really gets started.  I grab today's paperwork and open the first box.

(Don't hang on.  Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky)

FLASH

I'm 18 years old.  First day of class.  First day of college.  I'm in an advanced government class, because of the AP classes I took in High School.  I'm looking around the room.  I'm desperately trying to convince myself that I'm genuinely interested in the topic.  I'm a Gov. major working toward a law degree.  I have a knack for public speaking, and not once in four years of competitive speech did I lose a debate.  I have an incredible future in front of me.  Halfway through the lecture, of my first class...my first day...I get up and walk out.  I go to the admin building and change my major to Theatre.  I have just made a decision that will change my future.  I have traded security, and the very real possibility to be an influence in peoples lives, for selfish passion.  This has been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

FLASH

(It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.)

I have two too many pinks, and three too few blues.  The greens are missing altogether.  "Who knows where greens are?"  This is what I traded a law degree for.  Baby pajamas in various colors that go unaccounted for.  I smile.

FLASH

Summer
Two weeks before I head off to college.  My dad asks if I want to go visit my Grandfather at the nursing home.  The whole family is going over, and if I want to join, we have to leave now.  I'm on the back of a horse, holding the reins.  Wrapped around me are the arms of a girl I'd been trying for three months to get the attention of.  I can feel her body pressed against my back.  I tell my dad I'll go visit grandpa tomorrow.  The following morning I go with my dad to the funeral home instead of the nursing home.  I have been to that funeral home too many times since.  My grandfather died alone, in his sleep.  Two days after being moved to a nursing home from the hospital, where we had been told he would receive more attention and better care.  This man was born at the turn of the 20th century.  He was witness to the Titanic disaster.He lived through the nations Great Depression, and greatest agricultural famine.  He was alive when Orville and Wilber left the ground.  He watched Germany twice invade foreign lands in hopes of world conquest.  He knew the greatest atrocity ever visited on mankind...performed by his own country.  This man who told the most amazing stories of lassoing fish when he was a kid, never knew what an email was.  He died when the internet was a party trick being tried out by CERN nerds.

FLASH

(Dust in the wind...all we are is)
"How in the name of all thats holy do we have so many greens that are unaccounted for?

FLASH
I'm kissing her in the rain

FLASH
I'm kissing another her in the street.

FLASH
I'm kissing another her in front of the Mormon Temple in Seattle.

FLASH
I'm kissing another her in her doorw...

FLASH
wait...wha...what was...what was her name?
Goddammit, I've become THAT guy.  I fucking HATE that guy.

(Dust in the wind)

FLASH
I'm in Las Vegas at the hookah bar.  The hose gets to me, and I pass.  I don't smoke.

FLASH
One year later.  Same hookah bar.  Same friends.  I have the hose in one hand, and a cigarette in the other.

FLASH
The Las Vegas interstate going home.  I've been having a crisis of faith.  Mostly in that I don't have any, and I'm sick of trying to pretend otherwise.  Then it really hits me.  Its all pretend.  All of it.  Everything I've thought I believed...I don't think I ever really did.  And instead of discovering pain, or loss, or sadness, or fear...I burst out laughing.  This is not the laugh of someone experiencing true freedom for the first time.  This is not the laugh of someone having a ground breaking spiritual, or psychological breakthrough.  This is the laugh of someone who has heard the worlds funniest joke for nearly thirty years of his life...and just now....just this very second...gets it.  And holy fuck is it funny.

FLASH
Rehearsal.

FLASH
(All we are is Dust in the wind)

Home again.  Trying to make sense of this day.  Why that last flash?  That was simply a week ago.  For that matter though...why any of them.  Why is this happening?  Why now?

FLASH
My 31st birthday.  I am at the peak of my first psilocybin trip.  I ask one of my friends why he never told me about this before.  He simply responds that he tried.  I sink back into music of Kansas.  I watch the smoke swirl off the tip of my cigarette, and as it rises, it becomes the smoke of the incense burning before me right now.  31 year old tripping me is seeing 38 year old not tripping me.  And I see him.

(Dust in the wind)

I didn't know then what future me was smiling about.  Now me doesn't know why past me has ever stopped.  Past, present, and future me congregate in this little nexus, and we don't talk, we don't exchange pleasantries.  We simply exist, under the same stars.

 Stars that themselves, are already past, present, and future.