The cloud
To the scientist, something to be calculated
To the farmer, a premonition of life
To the artist, the canvas for the sun to paint on
To the child, the artist painting
To the shivering, a curse
To the perspiring, a blessing
To those under a clear sky, non-existent
To the defiant, something to jump through
To the meteorologist, a money-maker
To the blood-thirsty, a veil to drop bombs through
To the pre-occupied, irrelevant
To the worn, a reminder
In the end, it is the cloud.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Forget me, please.
Traveling to the place of your rearing is always an interesting endeavor. It stirs up all sorts of feelings, some good, some bad, and some indeterminable.
I was in Amarillo and Portales (Grandma's) over the Thanksgiving Break and it was an interesting, unrestful experience. This visit back stuck out to me in particular for some reason, perhaps due to my expectations. Less speculation, more narration-after all you have no idea what I'm saying.
On Thursday morning, We (my family and I) took the two hour trek over to the barren and forgotten land of East New Mexico. Arriving there around noon, the normal cycle began: carry the bags in, hug Mimi, eat chips with dip, and catch up on the news of the family-Cousin's surprise pregnancy, Aunt's argument with Mimi, and tears of frustration on the soft cheeks of my grandmother. Slowly more and more family start to trickle in, now finished working cattle at "the place."
Dinner begins and I, of course, take my seat at the "kids table." The kid's table is where I belong when I am in Portales. I am stuck in a time decelerrator in the minds of those sitting around "The Adult Table" as they poke fun at my facial hair as if I am a sixteen year old trying to grow out his first beard. I sit there, taking it, feeling as though I am a sixteen year old. The funniest experience, sitting at the kid's table, is getting talked to about your recent engagement and upcoming marriage. I suppose you don't graduate up to the Adult Table until you are old enough in the eyes of your relatives to be getting married.
That night, politics make their way into the discussion. I've never seen so many people avert their eyes to their cell-phones to avoid attempting to take my opinion seriously.
Portales:
Congratulations on the engagement: 1
"You don't need to get married this young" talks: 1
Beard jokes: Plenty
We traveled back to Amarillo on Friday, back to the town that is enigmatically unexplainable. This town you can taste and feel in a way I haven't experienced in many places. When I look around Amarillo, at the streets, the cars and the people, it's as if looking through a gray filter that slows time and progress. As if the spirits of the Native Americans that used to inhabit the land are hunting for those pursuing ingenuity and change and firing a tranquilizing arrow into their necks. A punishment for robbing them of their land. In Amarillo you have two choices: It's either impregnating and drugs or ministries and John Mayer.
It's interesting how seductive those two options seem to be to so many people. I suppose both provide orgasms and money.
I've noticed that the gray filter that slows time and progress disables those under its spell from investigating my personal growth and change, much like what I experienced in Portales. In their filmed eyes I am still the high-school Michael. The "emo" Michael. The "funny" Michael. The Michael that doesn't want to talk, but instead would rather busy himself with old practices.
I wish the tranquilizer could be sucked from the veins of that city, the grayness be erased, and a flower pop up in a sidewalk crack for someone to discover for the first time.
I want, rather than to be remembered, to be forgotten and reintroduced.
I was in Amarillo and Portales (Grandma's) over the Thanksgiving Break and it was an interesting, unrestful experience. This visit back stuck out to me in particular for some reason, perhaps due to my expectations. Less speculation, more narration-after all you have no idea what I'm saying.
On Thursday morning, We (my family and I) took the two hour trek over to the barren and forgotten land of East New Mexico. Arriving there around noon, the normal cycle began: carry the bags in, hug Mimi, eat chips with dip, and catch up on the news of the family-Cousin's surprise pregnancy, Aunt's argument with Mimi, and tears of frustration on the soft cheeks of my grandmother. Slowly more and more family start to trickle in, now finished working cattle at "the place."
Dinner begins and I, of course, take my seat at the "kids table." The kid's table is where I belong when I am in Portales. I am stuck in a time decelerrator in the minds of those sitting around "The Adult Table" as they poke fun at my facial hair as if I am a sixteen year old trying to grow out his first beard. I sit there, taking it, feeling as though I am a sixteen year old. The funniest experience, sitting at the kid's table, is getting talked to about your recent engagement and upcoming marriage. I suppose you don't graduate up to the Adult Table until you are old enough in the eyes of your relatives to be getting married.
That night, politics make their way into the discussion. I've never seen so many people avert their eyes to their cell-phones to avoid attempting to take my opinion seriously.
Portales:
Congratulations on the engagement: 1
"You don't need to get married this young" talks: 1
Beard jokes: Plenty
We traveled back to Amarillo on Friday, back to the town that is enigmatically unexplainable. This town you can taste and feel in a way I haven't experienced in many places. When I look around Amarillo, at the streets, the cars and the people, it's as if looking through a gray filter that slows time and progress. As if the spirits of the Native Americans that used to inhabit the land are hunting for those pursuing ingenuity and change and firing a tranquilizing arrow into their necks. A punishment for robbing them of their land. In Amarillo you have two choices: It's either impregnating and drugs or ministries and John Mayer.
It's interesting how seductive those two options seem to be to so many people. I suppose both provide orgasms and money.
I've noticed that the gray filter that slows time and progress disables those under its spell from investigating my personal growth and change, much like what I experienced in Portales. In their filmed eyes I am still the high-school Michael. The "emo" Michael. The "funny" Michael. The Michael that doesn't want to talk, but instead would rather busy himself with old practices.
I wish the tranquilizer could be sucked from the veins of that city, the grayness be erased, and a flower pop up in a sidewalk crack for someone to discover for the first time.
I want, rather than to be remembered, to be forgotten and reintroduced.
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