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Autumn rustles in the distance. Her moans settle on the sill outside my window and whisper cynicisms. Peering through streaked panes of glass, I am reminded of Spring’s passing and Fall’s grief. I invite the smoky horizon near – that dusty blue that hovers like the icy breath of a future thaw. Taste the ash of yesterday, tongue blackened by tomorrow’s eucalyptus.
Trees boasting green fatigue distinguish the periphery. Constant in their variability, these are the soldiers that guard my dreams – full-lunged, regal beings. Perhaps a reminder of simpler times when soliders were unneeded, when once we were all warriors. Unneeded, if only I could remember -
Breathe. Remember.
The trees are my brethren, my breath. So deliciously ordinary. Out there, see, how they wave to me? First, a single limb and then the others follow in clumsy unison, donning dragon faces which promise a blaze of glory.
Alas, the rooftops reveal themselves amid the leaves, shattering the illusion between fantasy, not fantasy, between out there and in here.
The real estate is a uninspired cell inside the Catherdral of Learning. Human hands streak the windows instead of lead and colored glass. The rain that marked this morning’s revelries has evaporated leaving only the soil and plants below to bare witness, and my own imperfect memory.
Six students, restless, scribble answers onto scantron sheets, a practice in choosing the right bubbles which will determine their academic fate.
Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble.
POP!
Be sure not to leave any stray marks.
This is the point where I would remove my glasses, if I wore any, and rub the tender spots between my eyes, but I don’t .
A prerequisite for college, this test and all its accompanying stress is a rite of passage. I arrange the hoops and usher the students through, knowing full well that what they’ll find on the other side is not much different than the banality they’re so eager to leave behind. But, I won’t be the one to burst their bubbles.
“You want change?” I want to roar, perhaps toppling my desk for effect. “You want independence? True independence? Then shatter that illusion you so begrudgeoning cling to.”
Looking out, I see how well-trained they are. So polite. So eager. So smart. Looking in, I sense their longing, their desire, their disdain for all the rules and expections of others. All their uncertainty.
My brethren, my breath. I want to shout, “Stand up and take back your life,” perhaps affecting them to topple their own desks too.
If I am your future, you are my past.
Outside: See the hazy horizon and the humble trees? There is comfort in solidarity.
Inside. Feel that flame? Flickering like mine? Flickering at the heart of all that is? What is that flickering?
You? Love? Literally wind against the wick? No trick questions here.
But, of course, I say nothing. I say, “Put your pencils down,” and “Begin work on the next section.” I say nothing.
Instead, I sit up here, uncomfortably behind the the desk and podium, and bury my insides inside a shallow LCD grave. The ink neither runs nor bleeds, but surely one day it will fade.
I’m a little concerned about my health. Waking reality tells me I have no reason to be, but that past 3 nights I’m certain my dreams are trying to warm me. Of what, I cannot tell. Each morning I wake up with only 1 image to remember. Everything else is a void.
In the first dream I had just taken a shit and when I look in the bowl my feces is in the shape of an anatomical heart. I didn’t know whether to be scared or honored it was so huge. What could this mean?
I don’t remember anything visually about the second dream, but I awoke with the singe scent of an electrical fire still fresh.
This morning, as I prepared the skillet with a splash of peanut oil and butter for breakfast potatoes, I gasped. The image that remained from last night dream was of a deep frying pan filled with oil. Instead of toasting my bread, I was deep frying it. Two slices of Italian bread swimming in rumbling oil taunt me from the pan.
I’m considering going raw. Doing a cleanse. Unplugging for a while. Examining what’s in my heart.
Brain Food
I’ve been eating a lot of cabbage lately. Shredded cabbage, cabbage salads, cooked cabbage. I try to eat what’s in season, so as a vegetarian that doesn’t leave me a lot of fresh options in the winter. Luckily I like cabbage, which stores well in these colder months, but today I had a terrible craving. I wanted broccoli! Cabbage and broccoli are in the same family, known interchangeably as Brassicaceae or Cruciferae, but I’m sure I don’t need to convince you that they by no means taste the same.
My boyfriend admits he’s never had a craving for broccoli and, come to think of it, neither have I, but today I did. Deciding on some leftover raviolis for dinner, we rushed done to the Market District twenty minutes before midnight and found a fresh-looking stand of broccoli. I was smitten with its green florets immediately. Maybe my craving was spurred on by the sunshine and warmth today or maybe by my lack of salads lately. Needless to say, when I popped that first steamed floret into my mouth I melted faster than the modest pats of butter I flavored it with did. Ah, two weeks til spring.
Note: As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that cabbage is bona-fidably good for the brain. But it does kind of look like a brain, doesn’t it?
