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Showing posts from April, 2004

Evening sheen

Mystical the light at this hour. It is almost 8pm, and I sit 17 stories above Madison Square Park in New York City; the sun is setting behind the scattered buildings. As it sets, the sun splatters red, orange, and yellow shades of itself in faded mix across the sky. This evening is particularly colorful, as the warm colors blend up towards the vestiges of the day's clear blue and sparkle down towards the 1920's buildings that populate this area. I think of Howard Roark of "The Fountainhead" when looking at these buildings of the skyscraper's early years, simple and vertical for many floors only to erupt into ornament crowning on the top floors; some of the buildings look like Beaux-French chateaux resting on running marble stilts, checkered with the windows of their lower floors. Some buildings, more squat and ornate still, are decorated all the way up their facades, colorful by nature and highlighted by the glorious kiss of the evening sun. I think of Howar...

So I was sitting here...

...at my desk. Nothing extraordinary, except the weather. Sunshine pouring through windows, into my veins. Better yet, keystrokes falling like the pitter patter of raindrops smearing on the windshield of my brain. Such a fine, fine afternoon, no gloom, thinking of Howard Roark and "The Fountainhead" as the 1920's buildings squat to the sky outside my window. Ornamentation on the facades, gothic and columnnades, other forms in between on the grid and columns piling up to the rootop water towers sometimes still in use. I can see these buildings jutting straight out of the pages of Ayn Rand's novel, thinking of an architect of that period trying modernism against the world with this sort of construction going on. What a wandering brain. That's about it, really, today. I created a presentation for a couple of people to see and have decided to leave work early. Which means that I need to end this elegant blog. Stream of consciousness, looking straight pass t...

Whatever happened today?

Somehow, I ended up sitting in the office until 8pm. I don't know why, I don't know how, considering that I am supposed to be not currently busy. Somehow, I ended up looking at the computer screen checking emails. I do not feel productive. Now, the office is quiet. I have not called friends. I do not understand what is happening around me. The air conditioning system is still whirring contently. I should be working out. Yet, I am still sitting here. I thought that things would change, but they have not. It is a good sign that I am not engaged in my work, slightly more in my life. And is that enough? It makes me ask the question of whatever happened today?

Feeling great, feeling good

Perhaps too much to explain, but I have a streak of happiness distracting me from the moment. It could be the bitter coffee that is bursting across my lips; the caffeine is a powder keg of energy that is moving my fingers in schizophrenic spurts across the keyboard. A stray email here and there is keeping me connected to friends, and the instant messenger application is flashing with a few conversations diverting my time from presentations. All together, a jumbled mess of a moment arranging itself across my computer screen. I will be sitting here for another twelve hours - so why the sudden feeling? I don't know why, I don't know how, but I am fully here in this moment, and that is enough for me. It sometimes takes quite an effort to find myself here in the present moment, instead of somewhere else. But where else are we except in the present moment? By the time that I find these words again, the moment will have already left like all the other moments previous; but for...

Ink blot

I am exhausted. I stayed awake too many hours last night - coffee and chocolate wired me open to the darkness. I patiently waited for a sleep that hardly came and then passed as soon as it started. Then, sitting in an airport in the morning, then on a plane, floating among clouds and dreams half awake and half clouds. This all might make sense if I was coherent in mind. My spirit has scampered away into the recesses of a mind that cannot focus on this moment. Only six more hours of work, if I can stand it. And all to show for this day is this little ditty, my little ink blot.

Blank

In the middle of the night, when darkness and stillness combine in the dead of sleep's wander, there is a moment of silence that belongs to ponderance and revelation. But in that moment, there is actually nothing except for darkness and stillness combined, nothing except for that brief moment before morning prepares the order for the day. Sleepless night that leads to this, remains of the day - blank.

Busy day

The flow of a day of work at the office is much more obscure than most things. Especially as the proverbial "knowledge worker." What do I spend the day doing? Sitting at a desk and typing. Do I produce a body of work that says anything? Usually not, little messages here and there. A stray document that explains a very precise point, without much more than context to a fine grain of a thought. Typing, reading (more perusing), thought (short burst, scattered, ridalin spurts), and then action...which comes as typing. Then talking in a meeting. Interspersed about document review and chatter with co-workers. Stop for lunch, it fits somewhere in the day to break the haphazard monotony. Finally, the day is complete. No commitments too great, no ideas big enough - somehow, the day finishes without resolution. Here I am, sitting at a desk, with nothing much to show except broken thoughts, schizophrenic keystrokes, and playful shapes depicting issues, resolutions, and ...

Blue skies ahead

I spent a weekend in philosophical discussion. Nothing extraordinary, except for a few precious moments of clarity. One stream consisted of a discussion of traveling and cultures. As addictive as heroine, always in the bloodstream. Another stream consisted of a discussion of ambitions and pursuits. As shifting as desert sands, and less certain of their settling. A last stream consisted of the human experience. As complex as the universe, and everything contained therein. Which deposits me at Monday morning, sitting again in an office in New York City. There is a line of clouds that appear elastic and stretched across the horizon. Building outlines are clear - the mark of an unusually cool April day (snow tonight? c'mon - where is spring now?). Dialogue driting somewhere in memory, I regain my senses. Above all else, there are blue skies ahead.