TEN LANE BABY

Sometimes the noise is so quiet, I can feel it in my fingertips. The hum of the refrigerator, the clunks of ice every hour. The 405 is all but half a mile west of my new home. Somedays the noise of the ten lane baby sings so loud it blurs out the sun. But today the wind was warm, and bright blue, and seemed to sing a perfect duet with the concrete border. It lays against my dog and I witnessed my world without any of my regular dispositions. I stopped to gather pieces of this scene - of the bright blue wind, the freeway song, the tug of my dog at the end of his leash; and fall into myself.

Sometimes the world around me comes to a grinding hault – the colors overpower me and it’s in those moments I feel like I’m finally living. Or maybe I’m the one who has paused, while life fleetingly continues on around me. Either way, it makes me wonder if someone has carved out my little life from its suburban curbside in the valley and placed it into a snow globe, amongst other snow globes, sitting on someone’s shelf, in a collection, gathering dust, with other snow globes.

I don’t mind the dust, I don’t mind being one of many. I don’t mind the tiny hands that unknowingly clear the glass of all the microscopic particles, giving me something new to peer through – and shake me into wonder yet again.