When I close my eyes, I see images...

Head in the grass, fluffy cumulous in the sky, vortices in my hair...

Serpentine mountains, a hazy sky, clothes plastered to my skin in the down pour, the water rushing past my ankles, the sound of a million raindrops falling, the smiles of my family...

The creaky house surrounded by cookie batter apartments, the smell of wine and sweat, and a single moment of rapture as violin, cello, and piano meshed in a sad lullaby of perfect dissonance...

The smell of wet grass in the evening air, the post-thunderstorm shocks folding slate grey clouds, a thick mist rising in the warmth, the soft panting of my sandy four-legged companion, and the scintillating ears of the waterlogged bunnies along the path...

The chalky air with the sound of soft conversations and turning pages, the achingly loud sound of thought...

The blinding image of sun reflected off of a glass lattice, the imposing colossus, and the sound of jets popping like air-borne cavitation...

Faster and faster and faster, I spiral. An ocean of minutes, a solar system of days, a galaxy of years, a universe of memories, accelerating towards The end.

Each day, shorter than the last.

And with my eyes closed, I can see it all. From the surface of the Earth, my view expands and expands until, like the Dead Sea, I float in the void, surrounded by flashing, blinding lights of memory.

A great unfolding. A grand waltz.

And when I open my eyes, the imprint is seared onto the backs of my photo-paper eyelids, so vibrantly that it compels me to reach and stretch outwards, to the world and universe beyond. To grab, to seize, to hold, and to keep each globule of joy...

And to allow my hands to become weathered and cracked and scarred with Life, so that I know, when I come to die, that I have lived.

Her eyes are blue.

Not ocean, not turquoise, not sky, rather ultraviolet.

Electric.

A wash of neon signs reflected in finite, red, green, blue detail.

She looks up at me, hollow eyes insensitive to every wavelength, save the perfectly curated artificial light. In the darkness, the hand projector angled towards her face produces flickering shadows that convulse across her skin.

They change, and change, and change, so fast that by the time one shape is perceived, it has morphed into another, the previous form long forgotten.

She looks past me, through me. I am not there.

"It has a hold of me."

Bright lights dazzle.

"It has hold of the whole world."

Silence...

"How will we ever break free..."

"Sometimes, talking to people makes me tired."

I looked up from my book as she spoke. Sun slanted low through the window adjacent to our sitting area, illuminating her intricate wicker chair in a cloak of golden silk. Dust particles floating free and lazy blinked in the aureate beam, snowflakes meandering gently towards no destination in particular. Her eyes mirrored gems of topaz, shimmering in the sun's resplendent and luxurious display of warmth. I smiled slightly, a vague sense of bemusement crinkling around my eyes.

"How so?"

"Well, I suppose in many ways. But recently, I've been paying closer attention to how the people around me talk."

A bird murmured a summer song above our window. The mellow air breathed, bringing with it smells of aged wood, dusty paper, and the faint, but distinct, odor of sun on exposed dirt.

"People seem to speak in binaries – everything is either 'literally the best' or 'literally the worst'. There is no room for anything in between. We seem to, at least in our language, oscillate between these extremes. Each action can..."

She shifted in her chair, sending a kaleidoscope of caramel refractions across the room.

"No, must, be fit into these categories. 'I had a coffee today. It was literally the best coffee I've ever had'. 'I got a B+ on my assignment, this is literally the worst'."

She sighed.

"When did we stop allowing for ordinary emotions in life? Where did 'pleasant' and 'disappointing' go? Why can't a coffee just be a coffee? An assignment, just an assignment? I'm not saying that coffee can't be good or bad, or that we can't be happy or sad about our performance in work, but using such exaggerated language leaves us no way to express ourselves when awful or amazing things really do happen."

"Life is a spectrum of goods and bads, and not all are equivalent. 'I lost my mother' certainly outweighs 'my coffee had too much milk'."

I found that my book had closed in my hands. I was absorbed by her speech, with no memory of having moved my hands from one position to another.

"People like to categorize; it makes moving through life easier. You develop schemas, your own perspective for 'how things are', and the world begins to make sense. But life is more dynamic, arguably richer and more complicated, than the absolute best and absolute worst moments. There are thousands of subtler joys and sorrows in between each breath. And the language we use to describe things that happen to us affects how we perceive the world. If we tell ourselves things are either terrible or incredible, we will we come to live our lives with the expectation of extrema, and extrema we will find."

"I like waking up in the morning and immediately making a hot cup of mint tea. I find short walks liberating, but sometimes I get a little cold and have to cut them short. The commute to work annoys me as the traffic often takes a long time to clear up. My lunches are fun because I get to spend them chatting with my friends. My project is sometimes frustrating, and other times immensely rewarding. I like coming home because I get to see the people that I love."

"Little tiny sources of happiness exist everywhere, hiding in the details, waiting to be discovered if you're willing to look for them."

She had gotten a little red in the face as she talked. When she got worked up about things, she would often forget to breathe. Her cheeks, lightly dusted with crimson, complemented the colors that adorned the sky as the sinking sun waved goodbye.

"All of this to say, I sometimes wish people were more direct. I wish that they said what they felt instead of determining which category a specific feeling fit into. I find the swinging gives me nausea."

I smiled.

"I suppose, then, that you just need to find people who will tell you, 'I enjoy your company'."

The rain abruptly ceased. For many long hours, it had waged a furious war of attrition against our rooftop, ultimately losing out to a patchwork of tightly packed grey slate slabs, and the sloping contours of our home.

"Let's go see!"

I followed her outside, giddy like a child, to witness the havoc such a torrential rain had wreaked on our garden. The carnage was not as grotesque as I had feared. The soaked wood of our cherry deck appeared simultaneously dull and glimmering in the post-tempest half-light. It was one of those storms where the clouds hung low and menacing for hours following, as if threatening to break again. A deep and thunderous grey, tumultuous and beckoning, it diffusely reflected any light incident upon it, while glittering raindrops which clung to every surface winked back. We stepped softly, so as not to disturb the silence that followed the storm. Not a bird, nor squirrel, nor person made a sound. Not a single gust or drifting column of air blew past our cheeks. It was if the storm, in its rage, had taken with it every sound that the earth lifted to the sky, save the drip-drop of water as it streamed down the leaves of the surrounding trees.

Our orchids were unharmed. Delicate though they may be, they had weathered the storm as it rained fire down upon them. They stood, drooping low with the weight of water on their petals. They were Blue Lady orchids, with deep cobalt leaves that seemed to glow in the grey light.

The trees were something to behold. Great oaks, whose leaves ordinarily took on the flat green of chlorophyll, had adopted an almost supernatural vibrance. Their leaves teaming with bulbous orbs of scintillating water, it was as if we were gazing up into a vast starscape, except the velvety blackness of space had been replaced with a wild collage of emerald and jade.

But perhaps most intriguing, were the rocks that adorned our garden. A little larger than a beachball and half buried in a desert of mulch, they were composed of a smattering of greys and tans. Ordinary stones, no doubt.

"Look at how they shine!"

We waded through the soft, spongy grass, our feet soaked and cleansed as they dragged through the miniature forest below. The rocks had darkened as the water stripped away their skin of dirt and dust, revealing below a simultaneously beautiful and ordinary complexion of swirls and spots. The colors had acquired a profound depth, as though each patch was its own glacial lake of earthy tones. The aroma of water mingling with dry dirt and mulch wafted slowly through us as we crouched to examine the stones.

They were surprisingly warm to the touch, as if they had just emerged from a dip in a hazy lake. Despite their smooth appearance, as I drew my finger across the top of one particular stone, their microscopic roughness was revealed to me. I could feel even the smallest rut or divot as the stone pulled against my finger, evidence of the life that it had lived. A life of hard knocks, and stern lessons in the impermanence of physical presence. Rough sections yielded to smoother stone, then back to roughness. It was a wondrous ensemble of ordinary imperfections, beautiful in the way they came together to fabricate a stone entirely unique in its form.

I was interrupted from my musings by a shout of joy. She had summited the rock adjacent to mine, beckoning me to join her atop the world of our garden. I pulled myself up, and found that the recently discovered roughness dragged pleasingly against the soles of my bare feet. The infinitesimal clasts lightly tickled my toes, as if holding me tightly to ensure that I wouldn't fall.

She was the first to move. She jumped to the next rock, her hair vortex of dusky flaxen as she landed, nearly losing her balance.

"Come on!"

We jumped from rock to rock, performing our inelegant rock dance, as though we were young children playing hopscotch. There was joy in action, and each movement had its own specific brand of delight. There was the exhilaration of pushing off of one boulder, taking flight. There was the freedom of floating, liberating in its novelty and brevity. And there was the surety and comfort of the return to familiarity, our feet kissing the ground as the sensation of weight returned us to earth. And so, we waltzed on the rocky arm of the spiral galaxy in our garden.

And above us, the upside-down smile of a dim rainbow watched us serenely as our giggles broke the stoic silence of the earth.

Space and Time and Space

It's not buried too deep; it may rest in a shallow grave, but buried it is. Even so, when a single word escapes, it often comes rushing to the surface with overwhelming power. A geyser of little moments, half remembered in the fog, explode with exquisite color.

The bench by the river in the rain, close, watching the drops flit by in the midnight lamp light. The misty, cloudy day at the observatory, where all we saw was the primordial forest, the birds, and each other. The cloudy roof where we said, without saying, the meaning of the look in our eyes. The crowded reunion where we sat amongst your friends, our socked feet just brushing past one another with each passing breath, and how tightly you hugged me goodbye. The night we sat on the balcony overlooking the great library, the little mouse watching us from its hiding spot in the jade ivy. The night you came to me, dusty and tired, and lay on my fluffy blanket on the floor. The drive where you suddenly grabbed my hand, flushed and staring straight ahead.

"I wish you were here"

"I'm quite fond of you too"

"That made me smile"

"Thank you for asking"

"I like your hugs"

"I think you'll like it, it's sweet" ... "Just like you"

"I'm not going to forget about you"

"You're a good one"

"I'm glad I got to see you tonight"

And then, of course the inevitable.

"I know what it feels like to be left behind, and I don't want you to go through that"

"It just won't work"

"I wish it could be different"

And silence. The silence was the hardest part. Even with space and time and space, there is still a space in me for you, that you filled up with warmth and kindness and little smiles for me, and just for me. An hour, a day, a week, a month, a year. It lessens, it ebbs, it no longer throbs, and it disappears so far into the background that it's dismissed as noise. But every so often, despite the space and time and space...

I admired the Steel Woman. She had been through greater trials than I, such pains and sorrows, and yet... she stood before me with her chin up, even as I cast my eyes down to the abyss.

I was ashamed, embarrassed to admit that I was broken. How easy had my life been? Hadn't I been handed the world? And yet, here I stood, chin to my chest, eyes foggy and defeated. How could I look her in the face? How could I, in my weakness, bear witness to such strength?

But the Steel Woman, tempered by life, had learned to be unrelentingly kind. And so, she laid a hand upon my downturned head, and bade me to look up.

And she smiled at me.

"It's okay," she said. "This, too, shall pass."

And then she gestured to the sanguine welkin...

"'Surely the sky lies open: let us go that way!'"

And so, the Steel Woman, my mother, lifted me from my knees and pushed me to the stars.

"Isn't it sort of sad?" She asked me.

I looked up from the photo album. She sat across from me in an old wooden rocking chair which creaked as she swayed back and forth, her bare feet tapping rhythmically on the slate-stone floor. The album sat between us on a short-legged coffee table, stained with years of tea spills, cookie crumbs, and happiness.

"All of these photos..."

Her fingers tugged on the glossy, laminate page as she drew her hand across amalgamation of photos, pasted haphazardly together to form a loose harmony of color and soul.

"Each one represents a time passed, whether it be happy or sad, triumphant or devastating. Time that we will never get back. Memories live among these pages, memories of people, some long gone and never coming back, that will live in our hearts forever."

"It's really kind of bittersweet," she said. "I look at these photos when I feel down and I lose myself in the memories of these highs and lows, of love and love lost, of time spent well and time wasted. It makes me long for the past. It makes me long to feel so intensely again. Most of all, though, it makes me smile."

"Isn't a sad smile the most beautiful thing of all?"

"I'd like to share something with you."

I lifted my head from the sand, shifting so that I could see her face, alight in the glow of the silver moon. Icy, pock-marked, chalky with the sleep dust of the stars, its platinum sheen drizzled down her smokey, auburn strands which floated angelically in the salt-stained breeze, coagulating and coalescing at her bangs before dripping onto the vermillion sand. Beyond her, the ocean whispered quietly under the velvet sky.

I stared in silent wonder as she reached into the pocket of her dress and retrieved a small, leather book, black as the space between the stars, its surface crumpled with age, use, and love. She caressed the book almost reverently, her fingers dragging across the worn cover, playing with the divots and rivulets that cross-crossed its face.

"This," she began quietly, "is my Collection of Words."

"It lives in my pocket and goes with me everywhere I go. All the places I've been, all the people I've met, all the minute beauties and fleeting perfections I've seen, this book has seen too."

"In its pages, I collect words. Every time I hear a quote that makes my soul sigh, I write it down so that no matter where I go, I can keep those words close to my heart, close to my soul. In these pages," she repeated with conviction, "I keep the wisdom of a thousand people."

"There is great pleasure in keeping such beauty in your pocket, always there for you when you need it, to peek at whenever, hidden in the privacy of its small pages even in the most public places. Isn't it marvelous how something so small can protect such wonder?"

I nodded, smiling as I stared into the intensity of her jade irises.

"What's your favorite quote?"

"That's an impossible question," she responded with a breezy smile that traveled from cheek to cheek, tracing across her lips, and curling up towards her eyes.

"I love them all. Right now, I particularly like this one: 'What's the point of walking of the rain if you're going to use an umbrella?'"

I laughed softly and she smiled knowingly.

"Beautiful."

"That may be the one that is floating on the surface of my mind at the moment, but by tomorrow that will change, as suddenly and fluidly as the seasons."

"I don't know what I will do with my life, where I will go, or who I will be, but I do know that for the rest of my life, I will continue to collect words. Until the day I die, my soul will overflow with the passion of the world so that when I leave, I know that I will have existed in the most visceral sense of the word, holding within my arms the most delicate and beautiful pieces of humanity."

"I want to live deliberately," she said, referencing the famous words of Thoreau. "'To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I cannot learn what it has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived at all.'"

An open door greets me with the scents of fall.

The sun slanting through the low hanging clouds, alighting softly on the reds and yellows and oranges and browns of the fallen leaves, creates the most distinct aroma; an aroma simultaneously sweet and musky, warm and chilly. The Autumn breeze brings with it the crisp smell of ripened apples, the earthy smell of recently moistened soil, and the faint ozone smell of rain.

Autumn is my favorite season.

I step out into the world, allowing my feet to take me where they please. I place one foot after the other, listening to the leaves crunch beneath my feet and feeling the earth pushing up against me, supporting me. I step through cool puddles that are like tiny ponds, the grass blades like seaweed stretching up towards the sun in the crystal-clear, green blue water, each puddle like a whole world, a snow globe that's been turned on its head while its inhabitants hang on for dear life, clinging to the earth for fear of falling into the sky.

I follow my own path, meandering to and fro, with no particular destination in mind. The sky is dark, but every so often a beam of pure gold will shoot through a gap, a crack in the otherwise perfect, Lambertian sky.

After an eternity of wandering, I stumble across an old bench, facing a stream that trickles in the half light. The bench appears to have been absorbed by the earth as fluffy green moss grows happily up each decaying stump. The whole bench is olive, aged and crumbling, its cracks and creases telling the story of decades of rain and snow that have fallen on its surface, absorbed and remembered in every fiber of its being. Old, old as time perhaps, with a million stories to tell, each day creating new memories to be stored deep within its cedar annals.

This day is no exception.

On the bench, she sits with her head in her hands in a melancholy silence, her chestnut hair the personification of the season as it hangs languidly like a drape around her hidden visage, ultimately settling on her knees, pooling like melted milk chocolate.

I seat myself softly next to her, the bench creaking its welcome, and she looks up at me, her green eyes sparkling with tiredness, with age, and with tears, and they appear to me like the purest emerald, a vivid mixture of watercolors melding together to create the most vivid sea-foam green.

We sit in silence for a while, as the trickling water tickles our ears.

"Sometimes," she starts, "it's just hard to get out of bed. I lie there thinking of all the things I should be doing and of all the things I wish I could be doing and of all the things I fear I may never do, and I am consumed by the desire to cease existing, if only for a moment, just to breathe one breath of serenity."

Silence fills the gap between us.

"And I wonder," she continues, "what it means to truly exist. There are times when I feel nothing and I wonder if I am alive. I wonder if I can be seen or heard or touched."

She pulls her knees to her chest.

"And every so often, I welcome the pang of loneliness that accompanies existence because it reminds me that I am, in fact, alive. But inevitably, numbness returns and I can't feel anything. 'Where am I?' I ask. 'Who am I?' I ask. No one ever answers me and I fade into the background, falling deeper and deeper into the never-ending pit of my own consciousness."

She turns to me, eyes bubbling with an intensity that can only be borne of despair.

"Do I exist?" She asks me. I think it is the most important question I have ever been asked.

"Yes," I whisper quietly. "You exist. You are here. I can see you."

Her eyes water again, melting like snow.

"I can see you."

Walking through the art gallery was like waltzing through a million tiny, infinitely detailed worlds.

She stopped in front of a painting of thousands of rainbow colored balls on a deep black background, as dark as space, giving the illusion that each sphere was a whole planet, a whole ecosystem, that existed for no other reason than to simply exist.

"I wonder..." she murmured without looking at me, "If a picture can paint a thousand words, can a thousand words paint a picture?"