0:00-10:09
Sliding into my seat now, and tucking the little plastic device into my coat pocket, the one on the inside of the left side, with a little zipper so you can keep stuff from falling out when it’s tossed around. Good for storing all sorts of anything – candy and gum, chapstick, allergy medicine, paper notes, glasses, nail clipper, USB sticks, pencils and pens. It’s really big, actually – like a decent-sized sandwich bag. It’s important to keep things that are really handy but easy to lose in there. Just like there’s a system for my pockets – wallet here, keys here, napkins and tissues here, notebook and phone here – certain objects find their way into the inside pocket. And tonight, while I push the button and lean back in the seat, wiggling myself into a comfortable spot here by the window, the handheld slips into the inside pocket. I’ve got some rules to bend.
I remember something here – I used to think that these things were uncomfortable. They really aren’t that bad, or maybe I’m just becoming so apathetic that I don’t even care anymore. It’s the state of my mind these days, it seems. You’ve got to be so busy and flowing and active that maybe what they call stuff like passion, at least for me, is just lots of natural energy, a force that needs to go somewhere, being aimed somewhere. It’s focused, yes, and it’s precise, REAL precise, because I’ve been trying to be direct and logical about setting it up for a long time, but now what happens when you have the direction figured out and it’s just this relentless pursuit. Towering over the sensibilities of other simpler, plain folk, there’s a distinct drive I’ve got that’s pushing me harder and harder. It’s got to stop, someday. I’m losing lots of time somewhere by putting more of it into now.
10:10-18:41
It should come, eventually. The little lady starts babbling from above. I know sometimes these seats have screens on the backsides, and you get to see some plump CEO greet you or a well-mannered uniformed person instruct you on safety – safety is never a laughing matter. Although repetition has deluded us into thinking we’re all going to be OK on this ride. Last time I checked, human bodies are adaptable in long-term conditions but really really bad at living when being collapsed against hard surfaces. So let’s be real here… is that buckle going to make that much of a difference, 500 miles high and 500 miles an hour?
Well, I can get my mind off this for moment, and get back to the topic at hand. It should come – what was that again? It’s my life that needs to come home. Away from the third wheel – that which starts out simple and even desired but ends up bothersome. Yet it finds itself involved in my affairs constantly. It’s only after some amount of time with this extra wheel that I realize, maybe the way things were before, that wasn’t so bad, and I need to put this thing away. So I smack myself around, but only in the transitional states, in the periods where the wheel isn’t so much an extra leg that needs to be cut off with some sort of electric tree saw, some kind of thick unmoving tumor, but just getting going again. And I’m interested. I know it won’t last long.
Yes, there are times when I just have to let loose and blow away the normal, just jumble up the parts. That’s like when I re-arrange my room, or go through the house by taking everything off the shelf and putting it back on or blowing off the dust and reading every old paper (saying that I’m cleaning everything up when really it’s just a phase where I need to sort stuff), or take a good look at file hierarchies and make sure they are easy to figure out. There’s not even a good reason for that one, because who is honestly going to look at that and make a big deal out of it? Proper English is only useful if you have time for it.
Beyond the technical, I’ve also got time when that third wheel is off to scoop up some emotion and let my heart go, just a tiny bit. It’s bumbling and awkward and it won’t make anything easier in the future, but a lot of fun has been had at 3 am when it’s time to go and your glasses are gone and maybe that yellow one wasn’t the best one because it’s rough now, but it sure is a story to remember, even if you get to add some parts and cut off the extra fat.
When you have had all the time in the world to be free, and you finally get back to focusing on creating something beautiful, maybe you realize that the free time generates the creativity needed to build.
18:42-21:34
Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you just have to start climbing up that hill, struggle after struggle. It actually gets pretty easy. And comfortable. You don’t even think much of it anymore. Just repetition and muscle memory, and look at this, all of sudden it’s pretty easy to fly all over and not even care, and you’ve got this great intersection of focus and expansion. Isn’t that what we’re looking for? Isn’t that why I’m drawn to the combinations that I am? That’s where I like to be. Simple and universal on one hand, worldly and complicated and unusual on the other.
I wish I could hold her hand, and look into her eyes, deep, and wonder about the universe some more. I need those slices of time to re-charge my emotions.
21:35-26:31
The plane has taken off by now. I hit the button on the plastic thing and it starts recording.
So I’ve got a little bit more time and maybe the leg that I would like to just CHEW off sometimes, it will go back to being just that third wheel, and I can even take it off like a training wheel and start prowling around again. Roaming the streets and the bars and the clubs with that jungle instinct, low-end thumping on my mind again, and that feeds the creativity and the art and passion and it comes out in the creations that stretch beyond human and object interaction, the inventions of abstract layers. It comes out HERE in exactly what’s so me.
Those moments are few and they are far apart and sometimes I don’t even know if I’m really having them anymore because they happen in fleeting times. But yeah, if I think about what’s going on, it’s definitely there, something instinctual, pushed aside by the human aspect that has been developed so well in this, my mind of precision.
It’s just delaying pleasure, really. It’s getting closer and closer to the point where I can relax, fortunately. And that’s a good thought, forgiving myself now.
The seat goes all the way down, and I’m staring out the window, visions of sleep filling my head.