Now and Then

Do you ever wake up and feel like anything is possible?

As if anything you decide to do that day is the right thing. The perfect thing. You can make no wrong choices. You could get hit by a car and it would be the best thing to ever happen to you, because it happened today.

You decide to wander around the city where you've live. Where you've lived for years, but now, today, you see the place as a newcomer. A tourist in your own town. Every building beckons, and what better one to visit first than the bookstore?

Everyday should start with a trip to the bookstore, you think.

The small shop is full of staff recommendations and ratings from the internet. Every cover tempts you. They all seem so fucking interesting. You want to pick them up and eat them whole. Digest them all at once. This reminds you that you'll never have enough time to read everything, but instead of bleak, this prospect seems romantic. It means that every book you do get to read is much sweeter. And it's cool, because you get to join the book's club. The story becomes the common denominator between you and a bunch of strangers who've also read it.

There's a woman working at the book store. She talks to you about Thailand and this yoga retreat she just returned from. It sounds beautiful. She's beautiful. So beautiful in fact, you think she may be the most beautiful person you've ever seen. That's nice.

You leave the book store with nothing, as it's too overwhelming to try and pick a book, and it was enough just to look at them.

On the street you notice everyone seems as perfect as the woman did. Flawless. Whole. With their experiences carried on their shoulders, bursting through their eyes and spun into the palms of their hands. Everyone has a million little moments, memories and ideas all caught up in their hair and tucked into their pockets.

And they bring all of these moments into every interaction they have. Everyone who meets you sees you slightly differently. Because when they speak to you, they don't see you simply as you are in this moment. That's how an infant would see you. No, an adult sees you compared to the last person they spoke to, you become tinged with the taste of someone they know who has your same name. They see you with a hint of hatred because your eyes look like their ex-girlfriend's, or they adore you immediately because you said hello the way their father does. Do you understand? When you meet someone, you're meeting their entire life. All of their experiences bundled up and traveling around on two legs. Every interaction unwittingly influenced by all of their predetermined notions and assumptions.

So. Here, you've realized this overwhelming awesome fact. Which you don't really know how to explain, but when you try you find yourself saying things like; "It's like we can't ever really know anyone, you know?" or "When was the last time you cried?" or "I hope I see her again." but in the end you don't mind if you don't. See her, I mean. You don't mind that you'll never see the woman again.  Like maybe she and you were only supposed to have that moment in the bookstore. Just a flash of personality in each others day. A random face that will show up in a dream two years from now. And when you wake up you'll wonder if she dreamt of you too.

That would be ok. That would be good. Because if nothing else, it's nice to be dreamt about now and then. Yes, you think, that would be enough.