This is how it happens in most cases. This is how I see it. I'm somewhere in the land of subconscious yet, and the sound of chainsaw wakes me up. I wonder if they are going to cut down all the remaining trees in the yard. Because they are determined, with their chainsaws that wake me up every day in the morning.
I take a look in the window to check how many trees are still left. I still can see trees in front of the window, and it reassures me. Though the area to the left is turning into a desolated and empty spot, which is depressing.
I woke up still hearing multiples dialogues multiple imaginary people had in my head. When I wake up the first thing I do is - I compose some train of thoughts to get hold of the situation. This way I can say I'm on track. It would be difficult otherwise to tell what exactly is going on, apart from the feeling of nerve wrecking constant passage of time.
I see the alarm clock thinking once again how useless it is for me. It never woke me up, probably it's too quiet or batteries need replacement. And all my clocks begin to move forward ahead of time, probably aware of the fact that I'm never on time and trying to compensate it.
Sounds from the street comprise a familiar monotone. Probably the only thing different is the hissing of wind now and then.
Birds sing in a clipped short way as if they are preoccupied with something, not having much time for a meaningless conversation. There are some pragmatic and business-like attitudes in their voices.
The sun appears and disappears multiple times during the day. When it disappears, it feels like it's late autumn again. The Perpetual autumn. Cold wind ruffles the foliage on the trees that survived the storm.
Then clouds suddenly disappear, and there is a flood of warm sunshine again. As if it's a time travel through many years with seasons rapidly succeeding each other. When it's summer minutes again, the wind subsides. And everything becomes quieter. And the sounds of birds are less business-like and more relaxed and dreamy.
Every time I rearrange things in my room I find myself in a different place. As if just placing all the notepads and pens from the table to the shelf, for example, transfers me to some different room.
The table, cleared from all those small distracting objects, turns into some symbol of efficiency. It acquires some dynamic quality. If it was a living creature, it would probably be talking about travels, cheap airline tickets, and the best ways to organize routes and schedules. There is some air of adventurism about it.
The sounds from above never change throughout the years. Somebody's jumping and then falling on the floor with a wild roar. It has been this way for years. Like five years ago it was the same sequence of sounds. I wonder why I'm not curious about what's going on there.
I wonder why I cannot hear the sound of a clock, though it's always here, it never ceases to exist.
I'm a deep water fish designed to live under pressure I guess. When the pressure subsides, everything becomes a bit empty, a bit depressing. And the energy seeps away somewhere.
Summer evenings sometimes evoke melancholy as if you feel this constant passage of time. Because they evoke recollections of an endless string of other summer evenings in your life, stretching back into eternity.
It's strange to have this feeling of temporariness as a key motivational factor. Like in a game when a frog needs to constantly jump from one floating leaf to another. Because they begin to drown the moment the Frog lands on them.
One morning I woke up with the thought, that I should have been hurrying to be on time to meet my friends because we had planned something really cool that day. The next moment I realized; the thing I thought about happened fifteen years ago. Everybody became fifteen years older and hardly even remember that thing we were crazy about.
Speaking of the passage of time. At the certain summer evenings, certain events from the past begin to feel as if they happened yesterday. And then there is a weird thought like probably some freak accident happened, and I had been catapulted into the future. Because nobody I talked to yesterday is around. Because it had been fifteen years ago.
Sometimes I begin to wonder what my motivations are, or my life goals. Like somewhere I've read, you should find out. For example, pick some accomplished, famous people you want to resemble. It definitely doesn't work for me.
Sometimes I think how cool it would be to live devoting my whole life to science, like cool scientists. But the next day this idea seems dull, and I want to devote myself to something else. Like to studying philosophy or psychology or maybe my vocation is to pick around all fields of life, not getting anywhere deep enough. Or just to walk under the sun, pick flowers and not give a shit.
Maybe I don't want to live one life. Because you stick to one thing and you miss multiple other things in life that are so cool and enticing. And here comes this feeling of passage of time in the summer evening, when you start to wonder if what you do is really what you want to do. Because there is so little time.
When there is nothing much to do except looking around seeing willow trees in the distance with the cascades of leaves reminiscent of enormous schools of silvery fish, this calmness around produces some feeling of restlessness.
It's not my usual environment. The serenity of a tree shadow instead of the typical bustle of endless distractions. The absence of anything to focus on compels me to turn inwards. I start to reminisce and introspect. This restlessness is channeled into words and phrases circling in my head like frantic fish in a Japanese pond.
I see spots of sunlight on the ground below trees. In a shade, where I hid from the direct sunlight.
Also, it's a sort of experiment where I'm trying to find out, if I can do anything related to an intellectual effort being outside and not in the familiar environment of the room and my laptop, where I switch off the fact of the summer outside and focus on being productive while another summer in my life just passes by.
This spring and summer though I lost my sense of direction and started to drift freely, directed by my impulses that I'm unable to resist. Namely being outside, breathing the air filled with fragrances of flowers and mowed grass, see sun patterns playing around me. And moving.
Anything but triggers unsurmountable onslaughts of restlessness and a sensation of time relentlessly passing. Like I see my life in the form of a torrent of sand, streaming through my fingers into oblivion.
Then I've reached the compromise with this demon of mine who falls into a state of excitement every time the sunlight comes through my window.
So I went outside, but instead of endless walking or jogging, I took a smartphone to write down whatever would come to my mind while I was submerged into this blissful tranquility of willow trees and brightly illuminated lawns and flower beds.
Without internet access, it also creates conditions with zero procrastinations helping to focus on the task at hand. This, and the absence of anything around drawing attention except a rare passersby.
Ideally, I need to rewrite a script, a task which is already behind the schedule, and I have no clear idea how to approach it. There are some contradicting issues and the pressure to make every line meaningful.
Well, it would be a normal situation for the fourth draft to at least replace strings of empty conversation with something meaningful. But when you are trying to write something with this idea in mind it becomes more like creating some elaborate mechanism, which parts have to be skillfully crafted and fit together, so the whole thing would also work.
This is when the mind shuts down, and you realize it's difficult to even direct the thoughts towards this subject. At least I've learned it's possible to write outside, and the flow of thoughts is smoother and clearer than that produced in a crowded environment of the room
I can see how the sun slowly moves to the west descending from its position somewhere directly above my head toward the horizon. Although, it's still daylight, 6 pm I notice how the light changes its hue from bright white to the slightest hint of yellow. It means that the evening is approaching.
The brevity of days somewhat adds a feeling of urgency, a realization of how quickly time passes by. There are paths covered with fine gravel and fallen willow leaves surrounded by lawns with flower beds scattered across them.
Shadows of huge stately willows stretched to the east cover most of the lawn; with the narrow strip of bright green on its farthest side, followed by an impenetrable wall of trees and shrubbery.
The sky is slowly changing its color from azure to sapphire, and all the clouds are gone except the few almost imperceptible on the eastern part of the horizon.
The summer heat that gripped everything with its sultry embrace for several days, when the air felt dense and heavy like a hot syrup, subsided. The air feels fresh, and there are intermittent waves of heat and coolness.
The constancy of scenery that otherwise would make me grow nervous, preventing me from staying at one point for too long, pushing me to keep going, now fulfills its purpose of a calming background.
Also, it's inspiring when I hear the whisper of leaves moving in a rhythm of summer breeze, myriads of silvery fish, disturbed, sparkling and murmuring their lulling motive.
In general, this whole environment is conducive to writing, there are few interruptions, although the traffic of people crossing the park increases when it gets closer to the evening.
On the other hand, something prevents my brain from getting into a state of fatigue, in efforts of fetching out words and inventing metaphors
There is a different perception of time when sometimes time seems to move faster than usual. I translate time into amounts of text I can read or amounts of text I can write and realize how limited the time is.
I can see how light around me takes a slight yellow hint then turns into yellow, then into orange and then the space around me is split by a fiery red ocean of sunset on the horizon, gradually turning into white, blue sapphire and deep violet of the evening sky with clouds coloured with fluffy pink tint of a cotton candy.
The evening is filled with bustle and noise when roads are getting choked with cars, and the air is full of irritable honks, sirens, and screeches of tires. And ten meters aside beyond the veil of foliage everything is submerged in the serenity and coolness of fresh evening air.
Old weathered tiles surround an abandoned island of flower beds, coalescing into one huge field of wild grass mixed with drying remnants of what has been mowed and left here an eternity ago.
At 8 pm sky takes a deeper tint of blue, and shadows are taking over, shielding everything from heat. The tops of old brick buildings are bright, orange, and festive, reflecting the sun while it's on its way to the horizon. The air is getting cooler, and occasional mosquitoes interrupt the smooth flow of consciousness.
The passage of time is inexorable, and the speed with which a day turns into an evening is palpable as if I live in an accelerated simulation of reality.
Or is it what happens when you start to worry about the passage of time. When you don't worry about the passage of time, though, years can fly by with the same lightning speed.
The evening dusk is crisscrossed by ultra-bright headlights, announcing with their presence the fact that the day is effectively approaching its end.
I mark the time by the distances I walk, the amounts of text I read and write. It creates an illusion that I capture the time and convert it into something tangible that I can keep. Something that won't slip away like the sand through my fingers. Though it's just an illusion and everything keeps going through cycles of days and nights
I have a habit of looking at the sun above my head. Every now and then I do that.
This way, seeing how high it is above the horizon, I can roughly estimate what time it is. Or how long it is before the sunset. If the sun is approaching the horizon I know, it's about seven or eight o'clock in the evening.
Also, it's some ritual, attaching me to the reality around. Maybe it's bad for my eyes. Sometimes I sneeze. I read it's a peculiar reaction of the human body to the sunlight getting directly in the eye.
I see the grass and low trees on my left side. Dust and smell of gasoline exhaust on the right, where the road is choked with cars, trying to move.
I see small, white and pink clover flowers among the grass.
The wind touches tree leaves, making them shimmer like ripples on the water, casting multiple reflections of light.
When I reach the shadows of the park, I feel like the heat that envelopes me subsides. There are familiar things. Thick bushes of nettle, dilapidated stone stairs leading down to small terraces filled with water, cooling in the shade of small trees surrounding the pools.
There are slopes and stairs leading gradually and irresistibly toward the river. At some point, it becomes visible as a multitude of bright sparkles, its ripples produce an infinite number of dazzling reflections of the sunlight in the water.
The river embankment is illuminated so brightly that it hurts to look at it. People, walking and riding along it, create a sensation of a never-ending festival. Sometimes because of that, it feels that the place itself is alive.
Tall trees are towering towards the sky with their tops invisible somewhere high above and their crowns creating a cool shadow below.
There is a small apple garden near the railroad. Futuristic constructions of subway station protrude in the middle of a tiny square with flower beds scattered around it and under squat apple trees.
At the open space of the square summer heat is so intense that it feels like there is a glowing furnace somewhere close above my head. Every surface radiates heat.
Meanwhile, in the shades of the trees, it's fresh and chilly, and there is a sensation of a constant breeze.
Wildflowers populating the grasses gradually replace each other throughout the summer; vivid yellow dandelions reminiscent of small suns give way to modest and pale clovers and chamomiles.
Clear blue sky with strange and mysterious patterns of clouds in it. And elusive darts of plane trails.
There are myriads spots of light where sun rays pass through translucent green foliage and dance on the ground. Leaves shimmer and sparkle, reflecting the sun.
Then, after noon, it becomes really hot, and the sun heats up asphalt roads and pavements until they begin to radiate the heat of their own. They stay hot and keep warming the air long after the sun disappears, and the sky turns purple, and there is only a strip of pale white tentatively coloring the western part of the sky. A remnant of the day.
During the sunset, the clouds turn pink like pieces of candy floss. The contrast between this pink color and the color of the sky, gradually changing from turquoise to sapphire to purple, creates some sensation of unfolding magic.
Invisible planes dart somewhere high above; their traces like small white feathers gradually expand into semi-transparent white stripes then slowly dissipate.
At noon the sun is situated somewhat directly above, and there are almost no shadows, so everything is submerged into the bath of bright luminescence. At this moment every detail of every object is visible with absolute clarity, no matter whether it's close or somewhere hundred meters away.
Herds of clouds move above so slow that their movement is almost imperceptible. When some of the clouds obscure the sun, there is a visible boundary where the temporary shade covering immediate surrounding ends and beyond which everything is filled with sunlight.
This dividing line is clearly visible on the ground. It moves, but it moves strangely, it's difficult to track this movement. At one moment the stretch of land, the trees, and the road are still in a dull gray shadow, and at the next, everything around is suddenly blazing and sparkling when the cloud has passed, and its shadow moved somewhere else. But it's difficult to catch this moment.
In one of those days, I saw a short thunderstorm. I walked toward the bridge, and some family walked toward me. Then they looked at the sky with some awe and had a quick conversation that could've been summed up like "holy shit."
Curious I took a look at the sky behind me, and what I saw was really amazing and formidable. An enormous black cloud that approached from behind was so huge that it looked like that it covered half of the sky.
So there were two sides of the world at that point; one side brightly lit and festive with the azure sky covered with white and fluffy tiny clouds where everything flashed reflections of the sun. And the other part, with the sky covered with an impenetrable and scary black blanket of the thundercloud, the reality beneath nad been cast into a dark shadow, every object stripped of its colors, gray and obscure.
Meanwhile the cloud kept rolling on, inexorably getting closer like a bulldozer, seemingly slow for an observer on the ground but, in fact, probably moving faster than a speed train. First strong and cold gusts of wind signaled the beginning of the thunderstorm. Huge splotches of gigantic raindrops started to appear randomly on the dusty ground that was still brightly lit by the sun.
Then everything became submerged in the dark shade. Drops of water were getting more and more numerous. Then a loud explosion marked by a blinding flash of lightning shattered the sky above.
And, as if this explosion ruptured some tremendous container filled with water somewhere above, at the next second all the space around was drowning in solid torrents of the downpour.
It looked like it was everywhere. All the universe to its farthest boundaries was filled with downpour, drumming the earth with a tremendous rattling and hissing noise. Then it passed as quickly as it started, and, once again, the universe was split into two parts. One with the formidable thundercloud and the wall of rain, though it didn't look that formidable anymore, neither it looked impenetrable black, rather dirty gray and somewhat irrelevant. And the other part, with the pristine, blue sky and quickly approaching line of sunshine.
I took a look at the sky seeing the remnants of the cloud swiftly moving away to reveal the sun hidden behind. Then, when the fabric of clouds became thin and ragged, the first assertive and vigorous rays started to pass through it. And then everything was submerged in the flood of sunshine again. The ghostly boundary dividing the light and shadow was sliding away, tentatively and quickly.
July consisted of sultry days with the dust permeating the glowing summer air. The all-pervading heat, dense and sticky like hot syrup.
The dust, din, and clatter from innumerable construction projects and roadworks on the streets, half of them closed with fences and various barricades with intricate walkarounds where pedestrians competed with cars for space. They were peppered with the noise and dust from the sites where vigorous work was in progress. At the same time, they tried to dodge trucks, tractors and other construction machinery.
Since there was something festive in this sight as well.
Because of the omnipotent and omnipresent sunlight. Sun dissolved in clouds of dust. Sun making every surface including the asphalt pavement to shine. Sun casting dazzling reflections from every surface capable of reflecting. Like glasses, car mirrors, or metallic guard rails.
The heat and crowds created a fever and a sense of being dissolved in this sea of people, objects, and music randomly emanating from cafes or performed by street musicians.
I started paying attention to the facades of buildings with intricately designed balconies and tender pastels on the walls. Yellow, pink. The outlines of roofs were suddenly breaking off into the sea of the blue sky with remote islands of white clouds somewhere very far above.
The traffic is creating an intermittent rhythm of slowing down and speeding up. Pedestrians are moving along wide sidewalks so gracefully like in a rhythm of some imperceptible music, their movement approaching the pattern of dance.
The celebration of summer and the sun that has returned after half of the year of obscurity, overcast, drizzle and dirty snow turning into the slush under feet. While cold gusts of wind were removing the last sparks of hope and life. Dying. But now those were forgotten ghosts of a nightmare that ended.
Some cunning monster is lurking in sudden gusts of sobering cold wind when the August is approaching its end. Something depressing that one doesn't want to think about, but its presence is getting more and more pronounced, more real and inevitable.
But in July there are no signs of this ghost. Because the sun heats up the pavements turning them into hot white glowing stoves, emanating a dense and fervent air. And the streets shine in the white scintillating glow.
The sun beats down relentlessly, and thoughts are mixed up and feverish, and there is no chance to cool down and think rationally.
Because the heat is everywhere and permeates everything, turning an immaculate fabric of reasoning into a boiling soup of emotions and impulses.
Dark clouds approached from the horizon, casting ominous shadows on the ground below. Their ragged, grizzly surface bubbled like vapor coming out of a simmering kettle, overheated and ready to blow.
Trees froze immobile, stunned, looking in disbelief at this monster that was getting closer slowly and inexorably. They were so terrified that they couldn't even move their leaves.
From a distance came a rumble of thunder, not quite loud yet. Not as loud as when the lightning strikes nearby, and a deafening explosion of thunder makes me blink, and I hear the ring in my ears.
The air is always still, hot, and dense during those short periods of quietness before the thunderstorm. Everything quiets down as if in awe, even insects stop buzzing.
And in the short period of this unnatural serenity, you realize that something is about to happen. Something is approaching. You still see the clear blue sky above but turn your head, and you see that the other half of the sky is covered with an impenetrable and horrifying veil of darkness.
Darkness is moving toward you in silence. And you realize that everything is quiet because every little creature has hidden and trembles in fright.
And there are silent flashes below this dark curtain that is about to swallow the world around. Bluish rapid flashes like lights from another world
I read about various writer's routines, how established writers organized their working process to achieve the maximum efficiency. From somebody who sat at their desk at some particular time every day. In a place with total absence of any distractions. To somebody who had been writing notes on a train or a bus, being squeezed among other passengers. Trying to write down things on a strip of paper suspended in the air and, at the same time, struggling to keep balance on that shaky moving vehicle.
I realized that the most interesting ideas come into my head when I have no opportunity to write them down. When I walk or read something without any desire to pause and switch to another activity. Like, for example, to write down those ideas. So usually I just let those thoughts to pass by with a hope that I will recall them later. It never happens. Because my memory is a fickle bitch, and those fleeting revelations are of as little importance to her as a memory of what exactly I did when I woke up. It all gets wiped out. To keep my brain clean and tidy, I guess.
So from the end of July and during August, when I went for a walk I started taking with me a smartphone. So whenever I had some interesting thought, I could write it into the notepad and then recall later. I quickly realized that some locations I frequented, like a park located along the route to the University district, put me in a certain state of mind, conducive to writing. I sat, surrounded by green lawns, and colorful flower beds, and willow trees with their leaves shimmering like sparkling schools of silvery fish. And this sight, illuminated by the summer sunshine, produced in me a special mood. I experienced the smooth and uninterruptible flow of thoughts and ideas. Then I could write them down and experience a feeling of accomplishment.
I wrote something like diary entries. Or I just tried to describe what I saw. Then I switched to more difficult tasks like working on the structure of my play or writing short stories. All this went so smooth, that I decided that this place and situation were perfect preconditions for writing.
I got into a habit of thinking about plots and various dialogues while I walked. Although, while it also was much easier to do during a walk rather than when I sat in my dusty room behind the laptop, the problem was that those thoughts and ideas were swift and evanescent like vague silhouettes of nimble fish in a pond. One moment they were there, circling in my mind, and the next moment they were gone without a trace as if they never existed.
One of those days at the beginning of August I was trying to restructure my play and to write some dialogues for the second act. I sat in a shadow of tree adjoining a narrow path covered with multi-colored gravel. The sun cast the tangerine light from the west side, and everything was submerged in a calm atmosphere of the summer evening. It would be perfect, if not for the mosquitos floating in shadows and disrupting my focus.
I wrote part of what I'd planned, then moved to the pond. From this vantage point, I could see tall futuristic buildings that sparkled in the orange light of early sunset. It was a vast open space; the pond was ringed by a wide pathway for jogging. Benches, flowerbeds, beaches covered with fresh green grass, willow trees. This space was populated by dwellers of nearby apartment blocks. They walked leisurely, jogged, stood and laid, surrounded by this lazy evening. Hot, sticky air of the day cooled down, becoming fresh and saturated with smells of grass, water, and flowers.
As the sun approached the horizon, everything drowned in a purple haze with red glimpses of sun cast on tops of trees and buildings. I moved on, ascending the hill that led to the University District. I shuffled in my head what I'd managed to figure out about the play despite the efforts of mosquitoes to disrupt my thoughts. The following sequence of events was a bit strange.
So it was evening and after I had successfully finished the task of doing nothing in particular near the pond, I climbed the road that led upwards toward the university. It was dark already, and this summer darkness had been brutally ravaged by headlights of cars, competing in how fast they could speed up producing the maximum amount of noise.
The air cooled down, and it felt a bit chilly. On my right, I saw a grill of the fence, dilapidated outlines of which were revealed by a vague and dim luminescence of streetlights. The fence had a haunted look of something that came out of a gothic story about vampires. Vampires that lived in gothic dilapidated castles surrounded by gothic dilapidated fences.
On the other side of the grill laid the darkness interspersed with vague and ghostly outlines of thick bushes. I looked at this picture translating visuals into descriptions. Actually, those were much better descriptions than that here, but anyway.
Apparently, I gave up on the task of rewriting the dialogues since I stopped thinking about that. At the same time, my brain already passed the peak of daily creativity. So I didn't expect much from it. I observed the gothic scenery on my right. I walked conjuring up various fancy words.
Then it struck me. I realized a strange thing. The name of the play the protagonist of my play had been writing "The hedgehogs" was the same as the name of the play itself. It was funny. Did I actually write about myself not even realizing it? It seemed crazy enough. "Ok, let's assume-" I decided " -that this is the case. Then I totally understand underlying motives of protagonist's struggle, writing block, and, eventually, his mental condition."
This thing (however crazy it sounded when I first realized it) immediately connected many scattered dots in the narrative. Now many things that previously looked random and gratuitous started making perfect sense. And I realized that I knew how to rewrite the dialogues and especially what should have happened in the second act. With a perfect clarity.
Also, I realized that I walked up the empty street surrounded by the darkness of night. And there was no place in sight where I could sit down. On my right stood the haunted fence from a gothic story. On my left, a stream of cars whizzed by, penetrating the darkness with dazzling headlights.
So there was no other option, and I started to write standing in the middle of the sidewalk in the ghostly luminance of streetlights. When I started, it was an hour and a half before midnight. At some point, when I started to feel that my mission was approaching accomplishment, I looked at the clock on my smartphone. It was shortly before midnight, and I also had to walk a couple of kilometers to reach the closest subway station.
I decided that I still had enough time to write about this strange experience too, while my impressions were fresh. So I walked a bit more toward the subway station, and then I found myself in an alley with rows of squat apple trees on my left. I took a position beside one of the trees and started writing.
After what felt like a couple of minutes I glanced at the clock again to learn that it was half past midnight. And the subway was going to be closed really soon.
The following was a stroll throughout the empty dark alley between the rows of ghostly apple trees on my left and the tall ghostly fence on my right. I saw the moon which was about to be swallowed by some strange monster comprised of huge black clouds. Like it was a whale swallowing the moon. Then the moon appeared from behind the other side of the cloud like it traveled all the way through the digestive system of this big whale and then escaped. So it was a collection of images and impressions that looked and felt strange at that moment
The summer produces a state of fever, restlessness, inability to stay at one spot for too long.
Constantly changing scenery has a soothing effect, though the sun pummeling everything with relentless heat keeps me from calming down, constantly maintaining a sensation of crazy never-ending carnival or a dance from which there is no escape and one is doomed to continue this dance until the point of exhaustion, collapsing on the ground, not being able to bear anymore this festive and powerful rhythm.
Red roses like drops of fire among glossy leaves sparkling in the sun. Brightly red and pink fields of flowers. Strips of sun dancing in the grass.
Myriads of sunny sparkles in running water, cascades of falling water producing a firework of sunny sparkles. The haze of summer heat seeps inside the brain igniting it.
The brain turns into a crazy dog unable to balance a cascade of impressions it gets with reactions it can produce in response. It starts running in circles squealing in excitement.
Until the point where it stops being coherent, the brain can produce something creative. Like poetry. Then it becomes too much, and everything is just submerged into a whirlwind of summer insanity, people, flowers, sparkling water, shimmering trees all coalesce in one wild dance, and the shining haze of heat defeats my feeling of rationality, feeling of time and space.
I'm caught in a powerful current and carried away unable to resist its strength. And my thoughts become hazy and incoherent, ragged remnants of them flattering wildly like a ripped sail during the storm. The sun storm. Rhythms and noises of city harmonizing themselves into one single and strong rhythm like a cosmic drum.
The cosmic beat is compelling everything to dance in its rhythm. People, flowers, drops of water flying violently and exploding into fireworks of sparkles, shimmering reflections of the sun, glossy leaves of gorgeous roses, the universe.
The rhythm keeps going on and on, not giving respite, not giving a second to pause, to calm down, to gather the thoughts, scattered among sunlit plains, boiling asphalt roads, grass lawns screaming with bright, green delight.
And mind like a puppy wildly running in circles, with its tongue out, chasing its tail. And it keeps going on and on and on and on and on and on. This dance will continue while the sun is high above my head in the sky turning white from tension and excitement.
Maybe it's more difficult to start. Because I cannot tell for sure what I think about right now. My thoughts are scattered.
Sometimes I feel like I want to write something clever and deep. It seems so shallow and irrelevant that eventually, I don't do it.
I write about flowers instead. Because that's what I see. And sparkles of the sun in the flying water. Because that's what I see. I repeat myself again, again and again, and again.
But it feels like something relevant. I want to sing about it on the top of my lungs. I'm a savage who seeing something beautiful produces incoherent noises unable to produce coherent noises. Those incoherent noises coalesce into song. A wild song filled to the brinks with passion and longing and admiration.
A wild mix of strong emotions poured into a fragile glass of my head. Your drink, sir. No ice. The mix bubbles, gurgles, produces hot steam then violently explodes filling everything with the smell of roses.
I'd prefer something more calming. Soothing. Like Long Island Ice tea. Big. With ice. I drink it and feel like the coolness of icecubes soothe my inflamed psyche. Fine.
A Hot day is approaching its end leaving the feeling of urgency once again. Oh, shit! It seems like the evening is approaching.
And the sun is not above my head but closer to the horizon. And the light takes some hint of yellow. And shades are getting longer.
The speed of time passage makes me panic to the degree when I start thinking frantically how I can make it move slower. I count minutes, seconds, check the clock. The best way to capture time is to run. The experience is so intense that time freezes at some points. It feels like the time moves slower. Because of the constantly changing scenery. The longer the route, the slower time seems to move, because I translate the time into the number of images I've seen. It also has the soothing effect.
Like I remember I had a simple computer program which I wrote myself that flashed random images on the screen with a speed of several images per second. Thousands, ten thousands of them. People, landscapes, abstractions, art, contemporary art, anime, paintings, drawings, photographs.
This wild kaleidoscope after a while turned my brain into the state of meditation where time seemed to freeze. I lost track of time, and I wasn't thinking about anything. My brain was so preoccupied with registering images flashing with high frequency it couldn't do anything else.
Writing produces a strangely calming effect. It helps to channel away extra energy and excitement. I would certainly recommend somebody who feels extra energy or excitement to write. Or pump iron. Pumping iron also does the job although not so quickly and efficiently.
At some point, I'm even able to hit the right keys most of the time. I've just realized the more I type, the better at it I get. As a result, I can produce a large amount of bullshit which I can then publish on my wall, thus harming people in the most humane possible way.
It's much better than if I'd turned angry and did something violent. So writing is also capable of reducing violence in this world. So I would recommend every violent person to channel the violence into writing, which inconsistency would make the brains of readers explode. But at least it's not illegal, which is the point.
Speaking of writing, running and time.
I've just realized how writing makes the time move faster. Every single time. I spent two hours zoning in, I barely noticed it. I noticed that the shadow of the building on the west side eventually covered bright red flower beds, reducing their screaming red vividness to calm, melancholic pastels of the evening.
So it was two hours that passed without me consciously registering it. So I would recommend to anybody who wants to kill time to write. It's the efficient way to do it.
On the other hand, it seems dangerous. You sit, start writing, and then you look around and see that something changed. Then you probably look in the mirror and find out that you are already old with a huge white beard, bald head, and a nightgown. Basically, you turned into Gandalf. Because apparently writing is magic.
The opposite thing is running. When you run the time slows down. It feels like hours passed while it only had been several minutes. And your memory at this moment is filled with bright and nice recollections of multiple sights and things you saw while you were running.
So running is obviously better than writing. Because running makes time to slow down and writing makes time to speed up. Since time is so precious and there is so little of it in the first place, nobody wants it run away even quicker than it usually does
At some point, I feel like typing stuff becomes a natural continuation of the flow of my thoughts. And it doesn't take any effort to do it. Unless I try to think up and write something more interesting than my natural stream of consciousness. Then it becomes much more difficult.
I would say, while I type stuff that just comes to my mind it feels like walking. I can do it indefinitely. Meanwhile, when I try to write something different, maybe like a story, it immediately becomes much more difficult. Like running. There are clear limits to how long I can run without stop. So if I wrote a story, I couldn't write more than several pages before being completely exhausted. While I can write my flow of consciousness indefinitely.
So now I think, why there is such a big difference? I think because when I try to write a story I have to do several things simultaneously, and it becomes exhausting. Like, I have to think where the plot is going, conjure up images of the places, descriptions of character's actions and what they are going to say.
The most difficult thing is probably to distinguish on the go what is relevant and what is not. So it's more difficult to write a story than to write random gibberish the way I do now. Which is natural. Then I think, what if I organize my thought process in a way it will be natural for me to think in term of plotlines, descriptions, and dialogues. In this case, I'll still be writing my stream of consciousness, but this stream will contain, so to speak, all the elements of a good story.
This way, for example, I might imagine myself a character from the story I write, and every time I focus on my navel, I'd be exercising seeing the imaginary world of a fairy tale with character's eyes and how he'd describe what he sees.
The main thing is not to lose touch with reality. As for the plotlines, it occurred to me, I don't have the habit of thinking in terms of plotlines, events, and actions. Which makes it especially difficult when I try it, because I'm not used to doing it. So the point is, maybe the way to make the process of writing stories less arduous is first to incorporate storytelling into the normal habitual thought process.
The day eventually transformed into evening. And the passage of time continues, carrying all the events and emotions and energy. Streetlights are turned on, illuminating a blue evening dusk with gentle pink pastels.
The insides of tree crown magically glow with silvery light, transforming into enigmatic dark space higher above. The heat of the day dissipated, replaced by evening coolness.
The bustle of the day turned into murmurs and whispers. Everything became calmer, creating conditions for a dreamy contemplation. The wild summer dance transformed into a waltz, something more gentle and smooth. Something more slow and thoughtful. In summer the passage of time feels different.
It feels slow and incredibly fast at the same time. It moves, and it produces ripples that travel far to the future to our future selves. Emerging in the form of recollections and dreams.
Summer is filled with magic, hiding in the mysterious shadows of evenings and quiet murmurs of hushed conversations.
Hiding in moving patterns of bright sunlight on the grass, in the foliage, shimmering when touched by breeze among the relentless heat of the midday
A tall pink building before me. Lit by sunlight, it consists of columns of different sizes and shapes. On its right, rows of thick rectangular columns decorated by semicircles engraved on them and arcs connecting them form several stories of huge balconies.
The balconies are submerged in light shadows protected from direct sunlight. Through the archways on the right side, I can see the sky. The balconies are so huge that inside one of them can be seen a whole grown tree with its leaves fluttering in the breeze.
The clouds crawl swiftly along the roof. The sky is filled with something white dissolved in it. Like clouds somewhere deep in the stratosphere visible from the earth as a white mist, stretching from the horizon to the horizon.
Branches of trees growing in front of the building move like waving hands, leaves on them similar to innumerable fingers wiggling under in the light breeze.
There is a huge contrast between the climate in the areas lit by the sun and in the shade. While open areas are melting like butter on a frying pan, asphalt pavements glowing white radiating back the heat, in shades the air is cool and refreshing.
The tint of white and blue in velvety crowns of spruces is reminiscent one of the sky.
The sky is crossed by a thin white arrow left by a plane. Slowly dissolving. And the mysterious white mist somewhere very high above.
White cumulus moving above with a visible speed look like elaborate landscapes with exquisite intermittent patterns of lights and shades in them.
A smattering of red, pink and white flowers mixed in the strange and festive mosaic.
Summer swiftly flew by and away, like a swift train leaving vivid images that might pop back to the surface in dreams and recollections, amplified with many additional details and symbols added by imagination to give the picture some symbolic meaning.
The rain rustles in leaves and rattles softly upon the steel surface of the awning. The hissing sound of rain coalesces with an inaudible ticking of the clock, producing a steady rhythm.
The timeline of my life continues to unfold, presenting crossroads and doubts. It becomes difficult to find something distracting, which would flood the mind with its novelty to draw attention completely from the seasonal autumn melancholy.
The melancholy is the thing I'd like to keep somewhere buried deep, unless it can give me some inspiration. Otherwise, it's useless. Something that only drains vital energy and makes the quality of life worse.
Unless it gives inspiration that can be transformed into some artistic form, so I could look at this whatever it would be thing later and think like, "yeah, it came out cool, it was worth a couple of minutes of sadness"
I wonder about the strange way I can manipulate my own emotions and the habit of doing that. I can tune them down or amplify them at will. Some emotions drain energy and evoke fatigue, so I tune them down or replace them with something different. The melancholy with anger.
An anger is a useful thing, if it's channeled the right way. It's one of the things that can be easily summoned, just by recalling some particularly irritating episode. And then it can be harnessed like electricity into a steady flow of energy, illuminating depressingly gray days and sleepy weather.
Anxiety can be transformed into an inspiring power, turned into a flow of words for example. It's a strong force that can turn brain into a powerful and productive machine. It's strange that this emotion is also really conducive to stay focused. Maybe if it doesn't exceed a certain threshold.
Hissing sounds of rain signal the beginning of season of introspection. This is when the most abstract things and studies suddenly become appealing and interesting.
Because the reality becomes less interesting and enticing. It's a season when sitting behind a laptop doesn't leave a feeling of regret, so something useful can be done finally.
Summer is the time of too many choices, and the most difficult choice is to either live in the present moment and enjoy life or sacrifice it, doing something ultimately related to the future because it doesn't bring instant gratification.
Noises and clutter, produced by the construction workers repairing the facade of the building, remind me about the virtue of work. Like I always feel awkward seeing people doing actual work. Like I feel that everything I ever did wasn't really work. Maybe because it wasn't so physically hard or because it didn't include noise and hardship of staying under the rain for the whole day.
When it's raining, it doesn't matter what time of a day it is. Because it looks the same no matter whether it's morning or noon or evening; the picture and sound are the same all the time.
The rain drains colors from everything, painting everything with dull gray pastels. As if this hissing and muttering veil of drizzle gradually washes away whatever colors objects had before. Then eventually everything becomes white and gray with dirty snow and cold sludge and ice on the pavements.
This is the time when vivid diagrams of abstract ideas on the screen become enticing, and intricacies of math, or the source code of complicated apps present a pleasant distraction from a depressing sight of the autumn reality.
The swish of tires through deep puddles of cold water. A monotonous patter of water dissolves the sense of time passage. Because the sight and the sound never change.
This way autumn and winter can be considered a one long day or one long night or rather something in between, some state of limbo on the border of day and night. Or reality is just melting into the gray goo. Maybe waiting to be repainted with inspiration from reality of ideas. It's like it turns into some form of gray canvas, some challenging empty space that can or cannot be altered with colors.
I remember a rainbow that was thrown across the sky, starting on one side of the horizon and ending in the opposite. Part of it was hidden among dark rain clouds.
And the weather was constantly switching from rain to sunshine and then to rain again. It felt strange like everything around was changing constantly.
The asphalt was still wet from the rain that passed as quickly as it started. And the sun was sparkling in multiple reflections in puddles and drops of water in the air. It was a beautiful rainbow. And it was moving. It looked as if it was alive, with moving and changing colors. Fading and becoming brighter again.
And shadows of clouds swiftly moving on the ground. Like mood swings. From dark to bright and positive, then to dark again then back. Bipolar kind of weather. And the steady wind producing a feeling of constant change, a constant flow of time, the constant motion of our lives in some direction.
Sometimes life consists of an infinite web of crossroads. Sometimes there are cool opportunities that appear when you are too tired to care.
Sometimes the weather reflects moods; sometimes it's just weather. Sometimes it's just what it is.
Some places store and guard precious memories. Like a small garden surrounded by trees, which I've seen three years before, and three years before that. Each time it was associated with a different emotion, but it has something that keeps me attached to this place through this sequence of events.
I'd like to slide through the air, accelerating, seeing clouds around me, ponderous, pierced by sun rays. Like big sentient fluffy creatures moving slowly somewhere. Like mountains. There is this special serenity permeating the sky. It just feels calming and invigorating at the same time.
There is a poetic rhythm in people's emotions. Joy and sorrow of summer sunsets.
Fifteen years ago I walked home, and there was a sensation of a steel needle stuck in the back of my head. It hurt, and I wondered, how I could remove it. It was a more tricky thing than I expected. At the same time, it channeled some energy that I eventually was able to harness.
This recollection is followed by multiple other recollections in the form of images. Like one of them are two tall futuristic buildings at night, like two cylinders, multiple windows in them emanating cold limelight. It looked like it was a spaceship floating in the darkness of space.
And the road leading somewhere through the dark sequence of railroad bridges, and I didn't know where it was going, and where I'd end up. I made the same wish every time a train crossed the bridge in front of me.
Every time I walked along this road afterward during days or nights. Years later my wish became true, but I didn't know if it was relevant anymore. Or it shows that I never had any idea what I wanted in life.
And then in spring, guys on bicycles started darting along this road, making wild bunny hops and raising clouds of dust and excitement. I decided it was cool and bought a bicycle. And it was amazing. When summer suddenly accelerated to an incredible speed, and I got used to the sound of wind in my ears. There was some deeper meaning to this, everything around blurring and flying away, and strips of light and shade switching frantically, and then an ocean of sunlight; flying down, gaining speed. When you realize that cars, moving in parallel along the highway to the left, don't overtake you. Delight, thrill, fear, and motion. Picture lit by the eternal sunshine. The sound of wind. And everything moving in the rhythm that I could only describe as something that means being alive.
This road leads directly toward the west. I can tell because I observed sunsets from a hill overlooking the road multiple times. Maybe several hundred. Calculating the time; if I go from work on foot when I'd reach this particular spot. It was calming. And I thought about future. The future was filled with achievements.
When the road is choked with traffic, myriads of stop signals create a beautiful red kaleidoscope. Red kaleidoscope in a purple haze of the evening and red fire of sunset.
I'd say it was so cool to believe in something that was so simple and to heal. Like a slogan of that summer, "Impossible is just a big word, behind which hide little people for whom it's easier to live in a world they are used to than find the strength to change it."
It was cool enough. To believe in something without toxic thought "you can do anything but is it really important?" Or just boredom and doubts. Do I move in a direction where I'll find something in the end?
Sometimes it's difficult to move forward as if you trudge through the swamp. Then I think that I need to change something. Or rather change everything. Like a snake, I shed my old skin composed of familiar routines, knowledge, and habits.
Then I find myself at the beginning of some road. This became a very familiar feeling. I don't know where it leads, and I don't care anymore, I just hope to enjoy the ride
The sound of flute, and a clear purple sky above, and a huge rain cloud on the horizon that moves slowly like a spaceship.
Part of it is colored with pink by the sunset. The rest of it is leaden gray and evil with whirlwinds of white dancing swiftly on its lower surface. Considering its size, I can imagine probably it covers a good half of the city. Half of the city submerged into autumn.
I can still see a clear purple evening sky above, pink glimpses of sunset. And I hear the flute and a strange voice singing some Native American song.
The sound is the medium that stitches everything together. Traffic lights switch on and off, pedestrians run around, cars honk, speeding up nervously, dazzling flashes of headlights, slow, invisible movement of the cloud, and the curls of white smoke.
Then I realize that all those things follow the same rhythm. Then there is this voice, the strange sound that makes my head swim, and I can see how everything is getting faster. And the rhythm is becoming more clear and pronounced in each motion, in flashes and colors.
The reality accelerates to the point when I can distinguish the movement of the giant gray cloud. I realize it moves really fast. And I can distinguish how the sky changes its color. It's getting darker, sliding into deeper shades of purple and the blinking reds and greens of traffic lights become even more visible, more important to the rhythm.
When the summer comes to an end, I always wonder what's next. I mean, when the summer begins I congratulate myself and mark another year in my life with a high achievement of staying alive. The summer is a period when I feel truly alive.
The rest of the year I try to devote myself to abstract things and thoughts. At the same time, it always feels like a journey, which outcome I can't predict.
Thus this song, which marks the end of summer, accompanied by the motion of the huge autumn cloud on the horizon makes me worry as well. Because it also marks the beginning of this journey, in which the course of my life often performs wild zigs and zags. And I have no idea what to expect.
Evenings in the late August always carry this strange mix of summer tranquility and sudden gusts of cold autumn wind. Like sudden intrusions of anxiety into mind, time to think about practical things. The subtle melancholy of an Autumn twilight and increasing alertness, focus and concentration.
