I look up at the corner of the window and wait for sun to rocket down the streets from the east and divide this neighborhood into a glowing grid for the day. But I'm not on such terms with dawn to time the sunrise. Big surprise from a boy who likes to slumber, not sleep. And all of this when I should be most awake. Time just flows like tiny rivers that you can never impede, though. The motivational poster would suggest that you "drink deep".
I'm some steps away from just sitting on the front porch and watching the sun rise. I have no reason not to, since I have no real obligations, except for getting a job and my life in order.
"'Cause I've got my looks, and you got yours.
Must have learned them from a million stars.
Oh, looks? Oh, man.
I get 'em on the bus, and I get 'em on the street, and I get 'em from you." -Doughty, "looks".
I just looked it up online. Screw it, the sun rises in 30 minutes. I'm going to stay up and watch it. And no, I have no reason why I'm up this late. My stomach hurts. I swore I was tired, but maybe I was just comfortable. Untangled and left. Now I wish I had stayed.
"Would you give it all away?" -Doves
I can watch the sun creep over this place and thread through the trees and watch the summer's heat that had rested in the branches start to unwind and rise again like spirits. It makes the outside unbearable and sensual and comforting and suffocating. Something about the heat pressing so close to your skin makes for an intimate day, even if just with the sun. The heat just weighs on you like something almost inside your body, persistant. In Texas, I remember being somehow able to withstand blazing days because I had the freedom of tree-climbing, of coming home that night with skinned knees and a great deal of satisfaction with the evening air still reverberating and joyful in my six-year-old lungs. Simplicity, I say.
20 minutes, roughly, until sunrise. The last time I stayed up this late was for the right reasons. Actually, they usually are, aren't they? The newspaper thumped against the door and we could just smile. Before that, Justin and I were roaming along the particular paths of our neighborhood in Aurora, drinking wine, feeding horses (yeah, because it's Colorado, and we always do that when we're not hiking), and chattering away as friends do.
I remember being my my garage when my dad come out around 5:30am, looking very surprised indeed. What a guy. And he, of course, was on his way to work out since he goes to sleep at 8 at night. Come on, old man! There's a whole new world waiting for you out there! Actually, if my dad chose to hit the ol' nightclub circut, I think he'd get dates left and right. What a guy. For reals:
I can't wait to see some of you soon. I hope you all realize that. I'm not good at correspondance; at least, not as much as I'd like to be. But I try, although a stray phone call couldn't hurt. heh.
It's amazing how much things can change in a year. I'm sure everyone on diaryland.com has already typed that line. I'm listening, obviously, to the Doves' second album "The Last Broadcast", which is essentially what I was listening to when I moved in here a summer ago. Good heavens - a year ago, I was still in Europe. At this point, we were still in Germany. In fact, that photo taken above was in Sienna during the semester abroad.
Man, I cna't believe how awesome my folks were to help me out finamcially on that Italy semester. I have photos but they're just a single square section, two-dimentional, and can't carry with it the three-dimentional swirl of emotion that, especially later in the trip, were constantly around the situation in a haze. And a boy who'd lived in two states his entire life was suddenly shaking hands with a smiling cab driver who had dropped him off at the Duomo, was suddenly bartering with a merchant on a rainy day in Florence with Italian that came as easily as anything, was suddenly sad because he was leaving his city.
My shirt has a target sign over my heart with a pointer saying "AIM/MIA".
The first meaning was unintentional (I'd love to say it was intended, but I was just, uh, drawing it while looking in a mirror), as it was just going to be "AIM". I wanted it red, wanted the target to be pinpoint accurate instead of slepdash magic marker. The circle's side is skittish and uneven, the lines unparallel, the ink leaking out into the surrounding cotton - I'm imperfect. I'm rough around the edges but with a pure core, I promise you. Fire away.
"You see the light ahead: so hold on.
You see the light, so come on." -Doves
Sunrise.
Jared