Restless Soapbox

Image:

Sitting on the balcony outside my Holiday Inn hotel room in Raleigh, North Carolina. Black bars obstruct my view, because I'm sitting on the ground. Robin egg blue sky pureed with white cloud. The sun is shining in this one spot, and it feels nice, even though I can't see my computer screen. A backhoe is pushing clay-ridden dirt around the grounds of a church, which has an apse. Cars crawl by on the road beneath me. In the distance I see southern horizon - some type of deciduous trees sprinkled with lime green and yellowy and orangy dotty leaves, draped with what appears to be a type of spanish moss, stretching out for God knows how long. The underbrush is minimal. Blue October's "Consent to Treatment" album is playing from my speakers. The breeze is on the cold side, and gives me goose bumps, that the sun melts away almost as soon as they form. I've closed the Triscut box and put it out of arm's reach to stop myself from finishing the whole package. Instead I'm sipping a tiny Dasani. I like coke water. In an hour I'm walking a mile over to the Sacred Heart Cathedral for a liturgy. Tap water tastes like soil, the air smells a bit like southern comfort.

Thoughts:

I need to accomplish something. I think that's the antidote to this miserable boredom. Solitary accomplishment. I need a break from people. Not enough blood to feed the leeches.

I like traveling, but I'm not sure I have the whole concept of home mastered in a way that's completely portable just yet. But I think if I keep doing this, I will. It must have something to do with becoming comfortable with yourself, and becoming independent. I like seeing the world. At least America. It helps you see things in a big picture sense, it helps you understand people, if you give it enough time to stew in your brain.

It's a different lifestyle. Avril's "Mobile". It's like Rice's vampires: the whole world is your home. There are benefits and shortcomings to both ends of it.

I like being alone. I like being able to do my own thing. To interact with others on a superficial level, like in a coffee shop, and then go sit and read or people watch. Yes, I get lonely. But more often than not being alone is good.

I'm getting tired of playing the games. Emotional, Social, Collegiate...just let me be! Why can't we just be who we are, why can't people just mind their own shit? If they minded their own, it wouldn't be shit but could be sculpted into something beautiful. Spend time figuring out yourself, stop hurting others. I know it's impossible. But we could all be at a level much higher and closer to that ceiling of possibility. It's petty. It's immature. And yet, is it really immature, because I see so many "Mature" people running around making life more difficult for everyone else, highlighting the wrong things, blurring the reality of what really matters.

People matter. Souls matter. Say I love you when you mean it. Put the meaning back into love. Enjoy life, because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or tonight. Handle people with care. Handle life with care. But suck the marrow out of it.

End of preaching.

P.S. I think the bars are painted with lead based paint.