Crash

It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

I really believe this.

These days we constantly invent new ways to avoid each other. Email, instant messaging. Text messaging. I'm the first one to say that yeah, I am guilty of it, that I prefer this habit of evading. Really dealing with people is a pain in the ass. Nurses, teachers, customer service people...they know all too well what we're working day in and day out to avoid.

But then there are some people who pull you back in. They reach out and grab you from the comfortable, disconnected atmosphere you've been floating around in and yank you back to life. Real life. Not the one you watch on TV. Not the disembodied form lettered voice you read on the internet.

These people notice you. They look into your eyes. They ask questions. They tug at those dorment emotions inside your chest. It's like coming up for air when you've been stuck under the surface for too long.

This morning on my way to work I started to think. All those faces I pass in oncoming cars, do they wonder who I am as much as I wonder about them?

And all at once there it is, the gentle, rolling warmth that the human connection brings.

I find myself lingering over the toll worker's mittened hand when I relinquish my change. Smiling longer at the girl in the brown coat I walk past on the sidewalk. Caring more for the old man struggling to get on the bus with his grocery bags.

That's the thing. We're all in this together. We're all human, and pretty soon we'll get it right. Or else, we'll just crash.

Sailing

I know I am a leaky vessel, but do I want to know it every day? This morning I stumble out of bed in my rumpled yellow t-shirt, the hands of sleep still covering my eyes, begging me to guess who. The floor is cold and my feet are bare. My spaghetti arms hang loosely at my sides, not yet ready to function and as I pad to the bathroom I stub my big toe on the door frame. My humanity reveals itself today in the form of pain. I frown and rub my toe furiously and I know what kind of day today will be.

Today will take its time, each frame flickering forward slowly, like a movie set in slow motion. Sometimes a giant imaginary finger will push pause at specific moments that serve to remind me of myself. The smile of a passing stranger in a red coat. The minute before I finish the last page of the book I’ve been reading for weeks. A laughing voice on the other end of the phone. A package from the mailman. The stubbed big toe.

And these things make me leak. They are the tiny eyelet holes that expose what’s inside me. I cannot hide my happiness or helplessness or fear or remorse or joy. The pierce through the holes of these things like sunlight through lace.

No one knows that I am thirty-two years old and am still scared of the dark. When I get home at night I sprint up the stairs and when I swing the heavy door open I am breathless and safe. I am human because I am afraid. This too, I cannot hide.

Sometimes when I am lying in bed and those minutes hit me when I am just on the verge of sleep, I recall those moments, those pauses in my day when I am revealed. Sighing, I wonder how this ship will ever sail with so many holes in it?