going to and from a train

Sometimes, my face aligns with the faces of those who take the train into downtown. I stay seated as the tracks whistle and roar, everybody wrestling to their destination, me not wanting to be on the train but knowing I have some part in the hustle. I watch people travel along with the hurry of ten sled dogs. I don't know why they are compelled to live a life where breath is just an automated response and the rest of the day turns into the rest of our lives and soon, we become strangers crossing the street from one another. I do not want to ever - not for a moment - turn the light in the attic that is my brain off or numbed. I exist, but that is not enough. I breathe without trying, but that is not enough. 

To live in the city means to forget what the sea whispers or the mountains confess. Sometimes, it is the difference between the horse running through the grass covered plains and the horse being a contestant in a rodeo. We shouldn't, but we do it often. Forgetfulness reels rampant when we're chasing something we do not yet have. We need friends, but we don't need to count them on our fingers. We need money, but we don't need so much that we don't know what to do with it. We need love, but we don't need to stay in relationships that slowly leave our hearts rotten like teeth without a tooth brush just because we're afraid of being alone. We may not always know what it is that marks the difference between just living and being truly alive, but somebody along the way must have said to find what you're looking for, you need to run. run to the train station, run to your place of work, run to your computer, run to your esteem, run away from, run to, always be running. This call for running can be so loud in the ears of those who hear it, but I do not want to rise early only to lace up running shoes every day for the rest of my life.

Why must we run, when there are so many little beams of sunlight and what could be is making friends with the dust bunnies while we're moving too fast to pay any mind. Go to school, find a job, get a husband, have a baby, retire, die, leave a legacy. Have you ever looked out the window and noticed something for the first time? Although, you have traveled to and from that street every day for the last seven years, do you remember a day where you noticed a sign post or a bramble or a house for the first time, even though it has been there all along. We are so busy - we don't remember what it was like to crane our necks and count the stars at night, even when we do, we're told to wish on shooting stars because they travel so fast, too fast for thoughts of our truest wishes to begin taking shape in our heads. We always want something else. When it is midwinter, we want the mist to turn into tall grass. When it is autumn, we want the fallen maple leaf to be a tulip bulb. I don't mind dreaming, it is the only place I visit where I am always myself. There, in these dreams, I do not have to try, but I would like to see what is in front of me too, otherwise I am bound to a life of sleeping.

I do not want to look at life as if it is a stop watch, losing time between each breath and exhale, but I would like to stop running and to do so, sometimes, I'll need to be pinched in order to really feel something besides simply being a human going to and from a train. This is why the woods matter. Without even trying, they tell me what I needed to hear as if I couldn't hear it when I was in the city. 

This is not a race. This is a life.

January, you are not yet over. Life, you have not yet left. Rise and put the coffee-maker on, this feeling calls for a cup of take your time and a brain that says there is nothing else you need to do today.

 outfit details: chicwish skirt & blouse, free people socks, crown and glory floral headband, gift necklace

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