Cracks and Cement

October 24

When I sit on the door step of my little balcony, I sometimes feel like a baby giraffe because my legs seem too long and gangly, my knees too knobby. The step is like my meditation spot. It is not particularly comfortable but usually when I am perched there it is quiet, and peaceful. It overlooks the alley and yes, there are the dark green dumpsters but there are also a lot of trees, tall, short, round, full.

As Fall slowly packs up to leave, the bright yellows and reds are darkening to a rustier orange, more moldy brownish, and the wind has been flying around crazily, shaking the boughs and branches, making the leaves fall. There are two trees that I am likely to notice when I first look up from my knobby knees – one is sturdy with many branches and these days alive with tiny bright yellow leaves, the other is really tall and all his leaves are gone, its branches are skinny and bare. Today was the kind of day my eyes settled on the sad tall tree.

The other day I was sitting outside while every now and then a gust of wind would make the leaves flutter down, slowly, serenely. It was so beautiful it was almost surreal, and I told myself that the leaves were like dreams. The kaleidoscopic leaves in the trees were dreams in the making and every time a dream came true, a leaf would break away from the branch and slowly flutter away.

Today I thought to myself that every time the wind blew, it tore away more dreams, and as they flew away, they disappeared into a dark abyss, another broken heart, another crippled soul.   

Yeah, I was kind of pessimistic and grumpy. I’m not sure if it is the constant micromanaging that I feel is necessary to do practicum, school and housework successfully, the early mornings, not being able to sleep well at night, missing home and eating chicken, the clogged toilets, cleanliness at home, or just everything together. But I came home from class and became to my bed what an Eskimo is to an igloo in a stereotypical world. It was quite drastic. I watched episodes of Girls (which is quite a good show contrary to my earlier perception) for around five hours straight; got up to pop frozen pizza in the oven, and then proceeded to eat the entire thing and chug down diet coke straight from the bottle (the coke is about a month old, by the way). I skipped my evening class and listened to mopey music while my episodes would load. And then I watched more episodes.

I finished the season, lay in bed in the dark and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn't. So I decided to put the dirty dishes in the washer, make my bed, take a shower, make some tea and finish a stupid budgeting assignment.

It’s called finding the cement and filling in the cracks.