Traveler of Bright

I have been keeping myself low and quiet here, wondering what the world will look like next week, tomorrow, this afternoon. When January came and left I found myself very aware of time, and very aware of her hands on everything. How did she ever steal that role when it so rightly belongs to someone else? The sun maybe or the moon. Either of them would do a better job I think, but instead I rely on her.

I live in anticipation of the next thing and how many minutes or miles I have to get there. My job that starts in a few hours, my run that will keep me from lingering in the hot shower, my toaster pancakes that require “setting number six” (which is absurd). The one that gets me the most is the odometer in my truck. Constantly staring at me. Reminding me that once it sat at one hundred and eighteen thousand, but now it’s more like one hundred and twenty-four and I swear I don’t drive that much. But I think I have a few more minutes of driving before I need an oil change. I hope time will let me know before it’s too late.

But she never reminds me of anything until it’s too late. Maybe that is my own doing. It never surprises me that I can’t keep up with her.

The only thing that surprises me anymore are the birds. Or the weather. Today we are expected to get a good amount of snowfall but I looked out the window this morning and saw a hummingbird collecting food from a camellia tree. It stopped me mid-sentence. Why is that stupid tree always in bloom? And, don’t they know about the snow?? They must know something I do not, the birds and the trees. We have talked about cutting that tree down for a while.

The other morning I witnessed three mourning doves sitting on an overpass as I drove to work. This curve in particular , the cause of many fender benders. If you ever commute from Norfolk to Virginia Beach you know the spot. I wonder if anyone else noticed. I laughed out loud at their meeting place. But as I write this, maybe it’s not the bend of the overpass that prompts cars to slow and brake abruptly, maybe it’s their doing! How brilliant.

It’s the Damn. Bald. Eagle. The one that perches on the church spire near our house. The American symbol of freedom, so huge and menacing, but yet just sitting up there, graceful as fuck! I’ll drop the “f-bomb” here to see if a certain someone is reading. But truly, why must she just sit up there, so tall and ominous like, on the skinniest of perches? Just find an appropriate perch already!

She is either a damn fool, a cunning hunter, or a big fat bully. And I like that I don’t know the difference for her. She can be whatever she wants. She reports to the sun and the moon after all. And she’s never late for a thing.

It has taken me long enough to write this that by now we have received what I guess to be about eight inches of snow. I woke up early because my stomach hurt and Lefty wanted to eat promptly at five am. He too must prove his intelligence over me by waking before the alarm clock. He ran around hesitantly in the yard long enough to collect little balls of snow on his ankles and butt, but now he is passed out next to me on the yellow sofa. Annoying how quickly he can fall back to sleep. As if he has no where to be later.

It’s a Thursday and it is unusually quiet outside. Normally by now (quarter to six) the traffic outside would be the white noise to my routine, but I guess you all have the day off today. Maybe I will too.

“I am never certain of the outcome, no matter how attentive I am to the plan. The clay holds the power, yet my hands are an extension of her. She may decide the final fate but she is heavily influenced by me, the maker. The color of feathers and how they are reflected onto a river, the subtle tracks in dusty, dry mud. The mud that never seems to grow grass. Those are my memories. To capture the scene in a literal sense is not what I am after.

I throw each piece on an old Shimpo that I acquired from another potter. Clay working my hands with rhythm and routine. Gentleness and the subtle brightness of the river is the anticipated outcome. It is stoneware, but it is earth from my mind. To hold it is to read my journal. “

Most of the walls in our house are a quiet shade of blue. The lights are warm and yellow, which give way to green. It’s still and it’s dim and I like it that way. There is noise and it comes from a busy street just yards away, and I barely hear it anymore. The loud, fast cars only amplify the stillness of our small house. Funny how a noise can become so constant until it’s no longer noise, it is just a part to the whole. I fear that if we ever live on a quieter road maybe I won’t like the noise that it brings.

I’m a little bit quieter than I used to be. Used to be. A phrase that can mean many things. Where exactly are we starting from? If we are speaking about childhood then I have always been quiet. But maybe that’s not when you met me, and you don’t really know the version of me that I am to you anymore. Do you think I’m different now? Or maybe it’s just that, collectively, we are different now. Whichever it is, it’s okay. Maybe it is just this season or maybe it will be for longer, I am not sure yet. But I think that I am getting back to the “used to be” part of me. I wish I could take you back to that time, to show you what I mean.

When I was young my family used to travel to the mountains and it was the only time I really experienced a different lifestyle other than the one we had, what my friends had. And I loved it. I find myself longing for that mountain home a lot. The house where you enter into the upstairs first. Nita and Wayne sitting in their respective chairs. It was cozy and cluttered in just the right amount, as if anything you ever needed was there but nothing was without purpose. A house filled with wonder, like a curio cabinet of sorts.

I picture the small kitchen with just enough space for a few people. Bumping elbows often and occasionally stepping on toes, I loved that feeling. A closeness that I didn’t have to express. The large window above the sink is the same window we have in our home now. Little things sitting on the sill.

Empty windowsills are such a waste.

In my mind the kitchen opens up straight into the living room, lined with windows the size of the walls. You can see over the tree line from here. This is the top of the mountain. And I don’t know if that is because I was so small or because it was true. The first place I can remember experiencing real wilderness. Herds of deer, flocks of turkeys. One year the walls were covered with hundreds of lady bugs and I can’t remember why. But Nita didn’t seem to mind as she twisted my hair into two braids so I could go out in the snow. I remember staring up at that tall ceiling as she worked, lost in millions of thoughts. Do you do that too when you are thinking?

Amongst all the wild things that came with the house, Sarah was by far the greatest. She was a small, black and white collie dog who roamed about as she pleased. Sometimes she would be near and other times you could just catch her in the distance. She was treasure to me, an interesting mind that I could never quite gain the affection of. One day we took Wayne’s old truck down to the pond to go fishing and Sarah came too. I don’t remember if she rode in the truck with us or if she just followed behind the wheels , but something tells me it was the latter. I loved that dog. I love that she smelled of dirt and magic. I picture her sleeping under the stars and looming around at the foot of the trees. I think about her a lot, even now. I see her from time to time in our own dogs, Lefty more than Fly. The way he slinks about in his silky black coat. His intense stare and curious demeanor. A shadow fox that was maybe meant to live on a mountain.

I’m not sure when we stopped visiting the mountain home. I can’t remember the last time I said goodbye to Sarah or Wayne or Nita. Years can pass without even a thought to that time in my life. But time has a way of catching up when it has fallen behind. It can be as simple as finding a lonesome feather on a walk. The brush of a hand in the kitchen. The gentle sound of birds in the early morning. All just small whispers from time, reminding us that we were never really that far ahead.

When I’m with you now it sometimes feels like I am time. You see me every now and then and it brings a faint turn to the corners of your mouth. A smile from an earlier memory. Other times I am but a muted shade of paint on your walls, the ones you keep covering in modern white. Or the sound of the train passing. You hear it but only for a small moment. Maybe it is just this season or maybe it will be for longer, I am not sure yet. Whichever it is, it’s okay.

For now, I will wait patiently for time to catch me.

Bright. Like the light you see at the end of the hall. From the kitchen. From the small light that flickers above the sink. The one turned on by the pull cord that sways back and forth. It’s dim but it’s bright. Bright like the light that shimmies it’s way through the blinds. The ones that are drawn closed almost all of the year. It is barely bright anymore, but it is illuminating small things around you. You can make out the shape of the chair in the corner, the pile of clothes on the floor, the dark shadow of fuzz that is the dog at the foot of the bed. The shakey evidence of shape proves to you that all is not dark. Not yet. Though some days it feels pretty near, Bright manages to shine it’s way through something. How it’s there is something of science, not miracle or hope. And yet you cannot cling to science. To molecules that float in your space. You can cling to brightness though.

What it’s made of I don’t have time for. I cannot be concerned with how it got here, but just that it is here. And the moment it leaves, all I will think of is its absence. How it glimmers through the trees like it is made of fire. How it dances on the water like it is water.

A tiny traveler is Bright. The weary end of some source. The sun? Electricity? The core of a burning hot earth? Wherever (or whatever) it has derived from I do not care for. I wont give it a name. Instead I will just acknowledge it. Allow it to stay. I will close my eyes to it, but be filled with warmth at it’s existence, despite my hiding. In crowded rooms I will look for it. As it appears in the reflection of someone’s glasses, or the shine of someones utensils in hand. I will nod to my weary traveler Bright, and hope that someone else has too taken notice of the flicker. But if not, I will revel in the notion that I have this companion.

Bright is a friend to any, but to many, she is unseen.