Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

One Week

The place is quiet. Still. All the noises normally hidden by the usual activities of life are suddenly present. Distinct and recognizable. The hum of electricity, the strange rush of water passing through distant pipes, the longing sigh of air drawn through intake and exhaust vents. The windows are closed against the autumn chill, so the sounds of the street don’t penetrate, making the noises all the more apparent in amidst the other silences. What a clatter is created by mere existence. 

How often have I been alone here and never noticed these things. But so rarely alone like this. My love is away for a week travelling, leaving me at home to my own devices. The hours stretch on, open, with nothing planned to fill them. It is in these moments that the artificiality of our daily lives, the rituals and tasks, habits and chores that we use to fill up our days, is exposed. You can see the seams of everything. How it is all just thrown together, a haphazard quilt to keep out the chill of atomizing, meaningless existence.  

The meaning of things, of all we do, is only apparent in its absence. Our fleeting mortality is what gives shape and weight to our days, which otherwise would pass one after the other without any differentiation. The sum of all we do is the time it grants us with each other. There is no need to mark the days or hours unless you are counting the time until you can see someone again.