Windows

There is that phrase that eyes are the windows to one's soul. I open them to allow my thoughts to escape. I close them to contain myself and keep it all together. I take in the words on a page to allow my thoughts to blend with that of the author, so to not feel so alone. I expel words to permanently tack my thoughts down to stop their pestering. And when I cannot find the words, the pressure forces out teardrops to leave on the page. I look into the eyes of another to see what I want to see - that he understands.

It explains why I have difficulty keeping them closed to fall asleep at night. They keep snapping open to release the crowded thoughts within. I am relieved I have them to open and close as I please. I wonder sometimes whether they become weary from the traffic they must contain or reveal. They inevitably become worn and laced with fine wrinkles and creases as the years go by. The creases remind me of the thoughts that have trespassed through this little mind and the words that were transcribed.

Magic

I wonder if trips will ever stop feeling like this: so unbearably, unrealistically intense. It somehow feels even theatrical, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end that have always meant to be. The encapsulation of what transpired into the boundaries of space and time somehow relieves it from the chaos to which I’m accustomed, as the covers of a book relieves the words on the pages. And of course, I am left again with the sadness that nothing will ever happen again in just the way it did within this story. I have a hard time believing and not believing that it was all as magical to everyone as it was to me. I suppose if I have learned anything in life it’s that it is filled with unilateral magic.

There’s nothing like traveling just to see friends. I was passed this time from one to another, like a series of trust falls without ever touching the ground in between. I’m inevitably impressed by their capacity to take care of me and absorb me into their life for just a little while. The exercise has completed its task: I trust them more than ever now. It gives me the false illusion that San Francisco is filled with nothing but warmth, friendship and good times.

A certain phrase danced at the tip of my tongue over the past few days, and it was a movingly awkward line delivered by none other than Hugh Grant in the movie Notting Hill. After Julia Roberts had spent the night, woke up terrorized by the paparazzi, and stormed out screaming at him for ruining her career, he said quietly, in that Hugh Grant sort of way: "I on the other hand will always be glad that you came to stay for a while."

Classic unilateral magic…or so it seemed at the time.