open ended
I’ve positioned myself in a section of the library where I feel even the clacking of my fingers along the keyboard is making too much noise. How do these other people type so silently? There’s a strict thinness to the air here. I feel I did not walk around enough before choosing my workspace. I saw a TikTok about legal writing urging women to strike phrases like “I feel” from their writing. But how can I? I feel.
When was the last time I was here? In this solarium-esue work room? I remember something about a calculus equation, so must have been eleventh grade. Something I did not anticipate is missing math homework. It was always odd-numbered problems, or something like that, meant to cut the work down and avoid heads exploding at assignments like “problems #11-115”. I miss making order out of something seemingly in-orderable, and having space to spread thought out and figure it out on my own. But more than that, I miss using a Paper Mate .5mm Clear Point Mechanical Pencil on the thick, sturdy pages of a 5-subject notebook nearly filled. Miss watching the old notes blur together, a one colored tie-dye motif.
My gum sits languid between my cheek and tongue, soaking up the cool, minty flavor but afraid of making a mood-disturbing sound. I already feel on thin ice with the typing. Seven people in this room. Feels like none. How biblical. Is drinking water allowed? How about a sniffle? Someone just got up, and I used the commotion to take a few fervent chomps of my gum.
How many paragraphs will I take to get to what I want to say? Do I even know what it is that I want to say? Decidedly not. There is something humming in my mind, urging me not to lose the attention of an amorphous reader. I have been cursed with an upbringing that has made me intensely self-aware. Cursed or blessed. Depends on the situation.
The belly of the plane that flies overhead reads in giant white words “SOUTHWEST.” Perhaps on that plane is a child that I once lovingly cared for. He is on a trip now, of which I received an anticipatory airport photo. We spent many long days together in his third year of life, and he carved out a small but persistent hole in my heart. He is also blessed with the curse of self-awareness. His parents are loving, but distant. They keep him at arm’s length, for their arms calcified into straight poles long before he was a twinkle in their eye, rendering them unable to perform the motion of pulling something close and holding it tight. Their fingers grip at him uncomfortably, so one could say their hold is tight.
I tend to do my writing in a coffee shop, so this atmosphere feels much more contained. The similarity lies in the way I keep my head dipped in concentration but let my eyes flit over my glasses to catch glimpses of those who also occupy the space. I love catching someone looking at the same time, their head bent in a similar noncommital, furtive way. I love being human together.
Is there something greater I could be aware of? Something I’m missing that I should use this time to address? I am unsure, but I am aware of how many times in this short… what shall I call it… essay(?) I have used the word “but”. I am aware of the fact that writing is bound by rules, but the prompt to which someone writes can be essentially boundless. Is a random journal entry written on a Thursday afternoon answering a prompt? Today is January 2nd, and I do not feel inclined to join a gym or go on a diet or in any harsh way change my life. I am feeling inclined to let out life. To stop containing the life that exists, I was about to say boundless, but it is actually pretty bound, inside of me.
The clouds move fast, but each leafless tree remains still against the changing sky. In Colorado, when you look out, you can see relatively uninterrupted for miles and miles. What a strange place to live where the ground hardly touches the sky.
