Late Evening/ Early Dusk
I wrote this about a week ago and came across it just now. I thought I'd share it with you. Yay for writing about random moments suspended in time... seems to be a theme for me lately!
The sun has faded into a mist of pastels, always darkening and stretching out into the horizon like a cat just awoken from slumber. Off in the distance young voices scream familiar cheers - I was once one of them. Those fields, full of promise, our fortress. The streetlights blink slowly on, attempting to match the overbearing power of the lights down below by the diamonds. The air is cool, far too cool for May - but then, so the seasons go these days. Everything seems to come a few weeks too late, not quite in sync with the average. It's sporadic now, like the last few years of my life.
Sporadic. Such an understatement.
Off in the distance a lone pair of headlights grows stronger, approaching this exposed corner and veering off just before reaching my driveway. I breathe in the approaching night, as well as the wafting aroma of cocoa from the freshly-laid mulch beneath the flowers, immaculate and precise. The mulch and those flowers are for me, or rather, for the day when others come to see an image of my past and the life I've led, to skim the surface of all that swims beneath this smiling exterior. A burst of screams from the diamonds. Little girls jumping up and down, frantically taking off helmets and looking for missing batting gloves. They smile and fidget and look up at the stands for their parents. I've played that game and loved every minute... of the simplicity, that is. The rest was irrelevant. I've spent countless hours racing onto the grass, slapping at mosquitoes and squinting up at the stars, singing out "Play's at first!" and forgetting that any other world existed besides my own. I've won and I've lost, and in the end I was left standing on the same fields looking up at the sky with the same curious questions. I've played that game...
And yet here I stand near those fields again, looking up at the sky. The scent of tomorrow fills my lungs, yet the films of the past replay like a distant broken record. The sun is fading and stars are fighting against the city lights. I watch the slow metamorphasis of my world and smile up at the heavens. I am rooted to the spot.
Our greatest battles in this life seem to be fought against the inevitable winds of time, that fateful force that pushes us along whether we want to move or not. Yet our most defining moments seem to occur in the tiny fragments of stillness between great transitions, moments during which we feel "frozen" or suspended above the world.
And ironically, we never even realize those moments have happened until they're swept away.
The sun has faded into a mist of pastels, always darkening and stretching out into the horizon like a cat just awoken from slumber. Off in the distance young voices scream familiar cheers - I was once one of them. Those fields, full of promise, our fortress. The streetlights blink slowly on, attempting to match the overbearing power of the lights down below by the diamonds. The air is cool, far too cool for May - but then, so the seasons go these days. Everything seems to come a few weeks too late, not quite in sync with the average. It's sporadic now, like the last few years of my life.
Sporadic. Such an understatement.
Off in the distance a lone pair of headlights grows stronger, approaching this exposed corner and veering off just before reaching my driveway. I breathe in the approaching night, as well as the wafting aroma of cocoa from the freshly-laid mulch beneath the flowers, immaculate and precise. The mulch and those flowers are for me, or rather, for the day when others come to see an image of my past and the life I've led, to skim the surface of all that swims beneath this smiling exterior. A burst of screams from the diamonds. Little girls jumping up and down, frantically taking off helmets and looking for missing batting gloves. They smile and fidget and look up at the stands for their parents. I've played that game and loved every minute... of the simplicity, that is. The rest was irrelevant. I've spent countless hours racing onto the grass, slapping at mosquitoes and squinting up at the stars, singing out "Play's at first!" and forgetting that any other world existed besides my own. I've won and I've lost, and in the end I was left standing on the same fields looking up at the sky with the same curious questions. I've played that game...
And yet here I stand near those fields again, looking up at the sky. The scent of tomorrow fills my lungs, yet the films of the past replay like a distant broken record. The sun is fading and stars are fighting against the city lights. I watch the slow metamorphasis of my world and smile up at the heavens. I am rooted to the spot.
Our greatest battles in this life seem to be fought against the inevitable winds of time, that fateful force that pushes us along whether we want to move or not. Yet our most defining moments seem to occur in the tiny fragments of stillness between great transitions, moments during which we feel "frozen" or suspended above the world.
And ironically, we never even realize those moments have happened until they're swept away.
posted by Sarah @ 12:43 PM
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