Category: entries

The moon at daytime

Bible clouds

The moon at daytime is a strange phenomenon when you think about it. But we see it because it’s there.

When I can’t make sense of present thoughts, I return to rewrites. On August 29, 2025, I wasn’t normally as capricious. I crave familiarity most of the time, and on other days, I reject it. But on this day, peace was not an afterthought. I did not dwell too long on daily preoccupations, like composing a text message or my route back home. I smiled at strangers. I availed myself to move on and stay put. My cup was full, but I did not spill my contents. I took a seat, drew a sigh, and sat down. Traffic on the interstate was steady like the breath. Beyond the highway and rolling hills, I stared into Pixar clouds against the backdrop of the azure sky. The air felt right, just like out west.

The moment was a gift. But I fumbled with two feeble arms receiving it.

Watching the daymoon float back as I drove toward its direction, dodging the same potholes I’ve memorized, I thought, couldn’t I imbue this elusive encounter rather than compare and contrast? Every song that played on my commute back home sounded splendid, so what was the catch? Everything felt aligned but illusory. The day’s fleeting minuscule qualities give credence for rejoicing in a rather rare occurrence, but what gives? Am I waiting for a moment’s passing to wistfully stare into what was? Did I bolt in an attempt to elude an impending disappointment because what goes up… must come down?

One has to be here to have this. So, land here. Gently.

I pulled into the driveway, entered the house, and sat down in my son’s room. Marbles, train tracks, cars, and books were strewn throughout. But I did not see a mess. I saw color.

Exteriorization

This Monday afternoon feels a lot like a Sunday evening. The streets are damp from rainfall. The rain’s slick attempt to assert itself without becoming a full tropical depression threw off my plans. Representing an inner state, clouds arrive and leave, and the asphalt is fragranced with petrichor. We are several days into rainy weather. I forgot how the sun looks suspended in the lofty azure. I took the dog out for a walk at 2:00 p.m., and the streets looked as though it were a quarter before seven. It is now 4:00 p.m., but it looks like 1 p.m. Just like the weather, I am confused. It has outdone itself in attempting to be everything. Recent changes distress me, and it will be only weeks until I recoil to familiarity.

Could you make yourself useful?

On Thursdays, we catastrophize.

Lately, dense clouds that eventually disperse greet me on weekend mornings. They are neither portentious in color nor productive of any rainfall. If you stay, could you make yourself useful? I thought.  They loiter, confabulating near my parked vehicle.

Typically, I enjoy the rain and the thought of it. I support the idea of precipitation and how the sky needs to release. I support everything related to it: thunder, dry lightning, puddled gutters, raindrops on window panes, the sound, wet bangs. But I could also reposition.

We are of space.

You feel stuck, unable to escape this body, but you get out of bed anyway. You are riddled with the same preoccupations, continue to do someone else’s job, and somehow get through the day to spill into the evening. You wonder if something will fall onto your lap as you are busy doing something else.

It’s been a dread dragging these feelings, sulking, paralyzed by overfelt emotions, reeling thoughts, and identities.

This evening, I read a book. I was exposed to words that weren’t my own, and was hit by a creative compulsion. I thought about these rainy days. I thought about integration. Then I delighted in feeling at all.

Are we not what happens to us?

Today, I feel distracted but aware. Stagnant and paralyzed by either thoughts or their absence.  I suppose I am trying too hard to make things work, to make myself useful and good. I had a soul-enriching conversation the other day. I left the room elated, ready for any shadows lurking around the next corner. I felt proud. I hardly feel like that anymore. The default lately is listlessness. My willingness disappears before it even falls into the periphery. I asked someone the other day if we mistake melancholy for contentment. I knew they weren’t the same, but the somber, this suspension, seems not uncommon. I wake up to the emotion, faint in its appearance but apparent in its imposition, as it looks at me straight in the eye as though I must nurse it all day. I sweat the day’s efforts so I can marinate and soak up the dregs. The week wears me well. I reify the week’s emotional residue by emoting what this is I am experiencing, before I can allow myself to leave my desk.

Write anything. Write shit.

The day’s highlight: my son’s deliberate arrangement.

Write about the impermanence of worldly pleasures and pain. Write about new buildings, deforestation, and lavish getaways. Write about isolation. Write about squeezing yourself into a space that you don’t quite fit in. And how you oscillate, deciding how to perform, that you fold into yourself anyway.

I stare into boxes where I am shelved, but I don’t stare long. I nod at assumptions, without agreeing to them. I save the small talk and prepare for misunderstandings. I hear the familiar dial tone when we disconnect, and I still hear it when I hang up.

Through this evolution, we emulate ideas and identities, and become ourselves anyway. We wonder if we would be confronting the unconscious mind if we were to leave what isn’t serving us. We ask ourselves whether we are only allowing the good and not the whole in this lived experience. We shuffle through work and passions and misplace our values. 

I am divided between seeking growth with caveats and authenticity and peace. Then I forget why I began in the first place.  I remember where to find the exit door, yet my paralysis keeps me directionless.

We try to become and embody as much and as many as humanely as possible, and are reduced to feeling empty, frayed, and corroded.