Schizophrenic Snow Globe Thoughts

The strange thing is...I don't even remember when I wrote this. I must have been contemplative and in a particularly dreary, angry, hateful mood. But the actual act of writing this, what I was thinking, what spawned this creativity-  is lost. I typically remember exactly why and how and what inspired me to write pieces - but this escapes me. This lapse of memory means something. What that something is? I'm not sure... I do remember hunching over the computer, and standing while I wrote - which means it was really flowing out of my fingers - that I wasn't censoring, and I wasn't thinking. But then again, I never really think about what I write - it just travels out,  like breath, like a long exhale, like a meditation. This is a fictional piece - with bits of reality, or realistic undertones/emotions I should say. But let me clarify one thing: I do NOT go into online chatrooms. Haha. Don't get me wrong - I did in middle school, when that was the "kool" thing to do. But I haven't gone into a chatroom since eighth grade when my friend and I fought over a cyber boy who was simultaneously flirting with both of us. Very dramatic. Oh, middle school. Enjoy the darkness. 

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Sometimes I trace your outline with my fingertips across the wooden floor. I close my eyes, envision your smile, the wrinkled lines by your eyes, and I laugh silently to myself. Sometimes, I'll lick an ice-cream cone, and the chocolate will get on my nose, maybe a few rainbow sprinkles, and I imagine you there wiping it off with a folded napkin, shaking your head at me. Sometimes I'll be talking to someone. I won't hear a sound besides the wind, whirring loudly into my ears, resounding and pounding like a drum. And I remember the way you would dance. 

No one knows about these thoughts. I don't tell anyone. I keep it to myself. I plaster a goofy grin on my face, nod at everything they say, and I listen. I listen to every word, but I don't hear what they are saying, because I don't genuinely care. I am only thinking of you. What you would say. Your voice is in my head, like a commentator from the horse races. 

Sometimes I worry that I've become schizophrenic. That the words I conjure up and form in my mind, though I know they are fictional or excerpts of things you once said, are not conscious. Then I have a Truman Show moment and wonder if anyone in my life is real. Once I lost my friend in a department store. I felt dizzy and light headed and parched. She was gone. I wondered if she had ever been there to begin with. Then she reappeared. But maybe I'm just that crazy person everyone stares at, everyone humors. I suppose I'll never know.

Sometimes I'll go into an online chatroom and pretend to be you. I say what I think you would say, laugh when I think you would laugh, be sarcastic or funny or rude or ill-tempered the way I remember you to be. It is my way of keeping you alive. Is that sick? Is that unhealthy? I know it is. But I continue to do it. 

Sometimes I'll sit under a tree, a giant oak or a tall fern, and pretend that you are dead. I pretend that you are a spirit, and that the soil and the earth underneath me, the wind blowing through the leaves, the fallen blossoms are a culmination of you. I talk to you, and people, passersby, think I'm in mourning. They think I have lost someone. I suppose I have.

Sometimes I get into my car and I scream and sob at the wheel. And at the red light the people in the car next to me look into the window, and I feel like I'm in a movie. They don't know why I'm crying, and they probably come up with far-fetched, ridiculous stories. In truth, I'm only crying about you - as inconsequential as you may seem. When I heave in and out, my chest pumping, my breath shortening and my eyes filled to the lid with tears, I feel calm, I feel real. I feel at peace with you. I feel angry with you. 

Sometimes I look at the moon and the stars, when I am walking alone at night. I tilt my head up and feel trapped in a snow globe, and I wonder when you are going to shake me up again. When is the snow going to fall? I don't see the sky expanding. I see it moving downward, closing in on me. But I feel connected to the moon. I wonder if you look at it too. I wonder if we look at the moon at the same time, feel a sense of reassurance, a sense of beautiful sadness. I wonder if we feel poetic at the same time, and close our eyes together and feel the breeze ripple through our hair. I'd like to think we do. 

When I feel contemplative like this, I often wish I had some place to go. A quiet mountainside by the beach, with padded grass and daisies. Without intruders. Just me and a checkered blanket. I would play with the strands of fabric, thinking to myself, looking up at the sky, looking down at the earth, wondering how we evolved, and you would come. You - my saving grace from the world, my saving grace from myself. You would hold me. You would tell me that everything would be alright. That I didn't have to worry anymore. That I didn't have to question the world. But when I did, you would give me your thoughts and they would provoke me to new, profound levels. And we would sit, on my red checkered blanket, huddled in eachothers warmth, until the sun came up and we didn't feel alone anymore.

Barcelona, it was the first time that we met, Barcelona, how can I forget

I wrote this passage after a mesmerizing experience in Guadi's Park Guell in Barcelona. In the Spring Semester 08 I studied abroad in London and over my break I went to Paris and then Barcelona. Visiting the park grounds was one of the highlights of my trip, due to the tremendous scenery and the general sense of peace and serenity I gained simply from stepping foot onto the property. The photograph to the right is one that I took while looking out from the top of Park Guell. The man pictured was a stranger and unaware of my camera - I captured him in his true form - taking in the view, just as I did. 

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I climbed steadily up towards  the top of  a cobblestone,  cemented hill.  I passed small trinket stores, hearing American accents and English words. After beads of sweat began to form in the small of my back and on my brow (as I was covered in my down jacket), we finally reached the pinnacle. Roaming green hills and marble arches adorned with mosaics of blues and greens, a sea of rich, shiny colors, created a serene yet visually stimulating atmosphere. A statue of a lizard, a tile image of an octopus, splayed across the wall, among countless other creations, specifically imitations of trees, plants, flowers, and other kinds of natural foliage were interspersed and plastered on the architecture throughout the park. Large oak trees formed shade for observers while white manufactured halls and columns paved the way to several natural dirt paths. We walked in silence, except for the crunching of the earth beneath our feet. My eyes drifted outwards and scanned the Barcelona coast, the sun beating down across my face, the warmth feeling soothing and inviting. I saw the sea, sparkling in the light, behind a foreground of expansive buildings and construction sites. People were close to each other, involved in laughter and conversation,  wrapped in blankets, resting on hard benches, faces upward towards the sky. I found a spot upon a hill that spoke to me, somewhere in between the engraved cacti and rock-covered ground. I sat on a large stone and told myself to commit to one action: breathing. I inhaled solitude and respite - lingering on my own thoughts. My back was slouched but my head was held high. I was in a completely relaxed state, deeply involved in my interior world, yet not concerned with worries or fears. It was a time of reflection and a chance to let go and relinquish any baggage that had been weighing down on me. When it was time to leave, we walked in silence all the way back to the metro station, never questioning our desire not to speak, only reveling in the fact that we had all been touched by this experience.