I fell asleep when the sun still shone on my champagne color blinds. Between grotesque dreams there was the sound of rain pelting down, washing away time and reminding me of its passage--I had gone to sleep to escape it. When I awoke in the dark I decided to go for a walk.
The paths in my neighborhood were ever so clear in the warm, humid air of June. The pub called Forever Blue--an apt translation of its Chinese name which says 'Deep Love'--was quiet as the crowd had gone after a World Cup match. It is a small pub with Christmas decoration on its window year-round, loud cheer and music seeping through its purple door every night. Next door is the supermarket and four young men in uniforms were loitering, talking in low voices. I turned to look at a road leading up to the luxurious residence up the hill. An old lover and I had hiked up to a windy park to watch small children crash their bikes against the fences. One child attempted to ride his dog--a golden retriever--in uncontrollable laughter.
My late-night walks are my shield against time, an emptiness unfolding before me when I have little clue to what lies ahead. Sometimes I picture myself walking up a long stairs in a game: a game of how far one can go, or how much one can endure, when the level of uncertainty can only go up as the ultimate challenge. The lucidness of the night, hanging above long silent roads only disrupted by cars brushing past, helps me believe that there will always be dawning of something new. Days will pass in ambiguity, and they will stall or speed until a flower springs open and life is new again.
In the meantime I sleep. Rather than stay up until the point of exhaustion, I lie down in bed and resign myself to sleep. It is the way to stop over-thinking--which I do everyday, and it leaves me quite tired.
The paths in my neighborhood were ever so clear in the warm, humid air of June. The pub called Forever Blue--an apt translation of its Chinese name which says 'Deep Love'--was quiet as the crowd had gone after a World Cup match. It is a small pub with Christmas decoration on its window year-round, loud cheer and music seeping through its purple door every night. Next door is the supermarket and four young men in uniforms were loitering, talking in low voices. I turned to look at a road leading up to the luxurious residence up the hill. An old lover and I had hiked up to a windy park to watch small children crash their bikes against the fences. One child attempted to ride his dog--a golden retriever--in uncontrollable laughter.
My late-night walks are my shield against time, an emptiness unfolding before me when I have little clue to what lies ahead. Sometimes I picture myself walking up a long stairs in a game: a game of how far one can go, or how much one can endure, when the level of uncertainty can only go up as the ultimate challenge. The lucidness of the night, hanging above long silent roads only disrupted by cars brushing past, helps me believe that there will always be dawning of something new. Days will pass in ambiguity, and they will stall or speed until a flower springs open and life is new again.
In the meantime I sleep. Rather than stay up until the point of exhaustion, I lie down in bed and resign myself to sleep. It is the way to stop over-thinking--which I do everyday, and it leaves me quite tired.
It's not a sleep of rest, but of deprivation. An escape from what is, what one is going through at the moment.
ReplyDeleteSome get lost in their thoughts; they become like the breath that they take, and slowly when the body and mind prepares to rest, the thoughts lie like a deflated balloon until the waking moment when the balloon is filled again.
Some use pills, music to drift into a false peaceful suspension of consciousness, always with the knowledge that time doesn't stand still. It'll come; it'll move on with new beginnings, perhaps with old endings weighing it down.
We lease space in our mind sometimes to things that shouldn't be there; they're not good tenants.