inside out

Today my thoughts roll like marbles from past to future, through seasons and ages to now. Tonight after 12.5 hours at the office I drove home in the cold drizzle longing for a summer rain that I could let drench and melt me. I was taken back to wanderings in rain through streets, cemetaries, and woods to lie down already soaked and dirty, becoming similar to the ground beneath me, flowing with the water from my body, big drops falling into my blind, open eyes, then pouring out and down my face into grass and dirt. Later I was reminded of the bright fervency of summer, in which I've moved among trees while energized by the filligre and dappling of sunshine upon me as it shoved through hot, thick air. I walked and walked paths I did not know through lustful greenery that was humming with life, drunk on sunlight, certain it would take over the world. The smell of dirt, sap, pollen, leaves and bark diffused through my lungs outward to my fingertips and through my skin inward to my heart. This solitude always feels so pure and inviolable. Truth stands there untouched, uninterpreted. In being alone there is no danger of hurting anyone or being hurt myself. There are no needs beyond the moment. I struggle to maintain balance between introspection and outward focus. I wish that I could live only for myself. I wish that I could live only for other people. Finding balance seems like finding the spot at which a steel ball hovers between two magnets, and I am so impatient.