Monday, December 21, 2009
Freezing Forms Cracks
This time of the year presents opportunities for people to layer up with clothing- any excuse to look good and maintain the comfort of warmth. With sharing this warmth in mind, it's also this time of year that we meet up with friends, people of our present and past, to exchange stories, finding out what has happened to others, while updating others as well to own endeavors. And as the long nights go on during these times, we submit ourselves to all sorts of sensory excess, whether it be food & drink, or music, or the comforting company of people, that brings about that sense of conjugal warmth.
However, when all the establishments have closed, or all the friends have gone back to their respective homes, you come to your room, and take off your clothes. You peel away the layers of clothing that you had for the day, and you lie in bed, with only the most bare of essentials covering you. And you think that, throughout the excess, throughout the liquor, and food, and friends old and new, you find that you've inadvertently left yourself in your most vulnerable.
In the spirit of alcohol and proximity, you confess your true emotions to that certain friend you’ve always eyed, then you find that you’re whispering softly to each other through the din of the party. And your mutual fumbling ends up with the two of you in a strange bed, either awkwardly or euphorically, but always with the wonder of happened the night before.
Under the influence of the longing to talk to one other again, people confide their current fears to friends they hadn’t seen in years. And, regardless of whether we can truly relate, we go on and do, just like we did back when we were in high school or college. It’s like picking up where we left off seemed like just days, when it’s really been years since.
And as you’ve turned your lights off for the night, after coming home from the physical dalliances you’ve had, or the emotional exchanges you had with friends, old and new, you come to the realization, in your bed, alone, that you tried so hard to bundle yourself up in layers, in the quest to keep yourself warm, only to find that what you did was peel yourself open, leaving you exposed to the cold. And it bites you to your core, knowing that you’re out there, alone.
I was supposed to end my post on that note. It’s taken me almost a week to write down what’s been shared to me by other people this season. But I cannot let it end there, because inasmuch as I may have felt this way in seasons past or in short stretches of this year’s, I (and those who shared their thoughts, their fears with me) still know that, time and time again, we will leave ourselves open to that cold. We will willingly bring our defenses down and expose that which we have fought so hard to protect. Because in peeling those layers off, we open up our hearts to those that care the most.
And there we find the warmth that no amount of layering could ever make.
This time of the year presents opportunities for people to layer up with clothing- any excuse to look good and maintain the comfort of warmth. With sharing this warmth in mind, it's also this time of year that we meet up with friends, people of our present and past, to exchange stories, finding out what has happened to others, while updating others as well to own endeavors. And as the long nights go on during these times, we submit ourselves to all sorts of sensory excess, whether it be food & drink, or music, or the comforting company of people, that brings about that sense of conjugal warmth.
However, when all the establishments have closed, or all the friends have gone back to their respective homes, you come to your room, and take off your clothes. You peel away the layers of clothing that you had for the day, and you lie in bed, with only the most bare of essentials covering you. And you think that, throughout the excess, throughout the liquor, and food, and friends old and new, you find that you've inadvertently left yourself in your most vulnerable.
In the spirit of alcohol and proximity, you confess your true emotions to that certain friend you’ve always eyed, then you find that you’re whispering softly to each other through the din of the party. And your mutual fumbling ends up with the two of you in a strange bed, either awkwardly or euphorically, but always with the wonder of happened the night before.
Under the influence of the longing to talk to one other again, people confide their current fears to friends they hadn’t seen in years. And, regardless of whether we can truly relate, we go on and do, just like we did back when we were in high school or college. It’s like picking up where we left off seemed like just days, when it’s really been years since.
And as you’ve turned your lights off for the night, after coming home from the physical dalliances you’ve had, or the emotional exchanges you had with friends, old and new, you come to the realization, in your bed, alone, that you tried so hard to bundle yourself up in layers, in the quest to keep yourself warm, only to find that what you did was peel yourself open, leaving you exposed to the cold. And it bites you to your core, knowing that you’re out there, alone.
I was supposed to end my post on that note. It’s taken me almost a week to write down what’s been shared to me by other people this season. But I cannot let it end there, because inasmuch as I may have felt this way in seasons past or in short stretches of this year’s, I (and those who shared their thoughts, their fears with me) still know that, time and time again, we will leave ourselves open to that cold. We will willingly bring our defenses down and expose that which we have fought so hard to protect. Because in peeling those layers off, we open up our hearts to those that care the most.
And there we find the warmth that no amount of layering could ever make.
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