Silences

It's hot outside. I took a walk today. Also drove to a nearby town, so I could deposit some checks for a traveling friend at her bank branch. Drove to another town, looking for a specialty store for a certain gift, but failed to find one. Withdrew some money from my account at an ATM. Bought a liquid lunch, in this case a healthy smoothie.

Restless in this heat. These are good nights for eating at outside tables, for going to movies or ice cream shops, or best of all, for love. Warm San Francisco nights.

When a tree falls in a distant forest and no one is there to see it, did it really happen? An old philosophy problem.

If you continue to love somebody from afar, without any contact and with no return of affection, can it be said to be real?

Which feelings can you trust, and which are to be "held in check" or shunted aside? What does it mean, exactly, to "get over" somebody? To "move on?"

I hear all of these phrases, but they hold no emotional meaning for me. Lots of people offer advice; none of it resonates. What about the pleasure one derives from loving another person? Is that supposed to just vanish into thin air, when your love is no longer welcome?

Where, precisely, do all of these strange and powerful feelings go if they do go away? Why do others try to censor them, as if some are appropriate and some no longer so. They were all apppropriate a moment ago. Why not now?

Maybe somewhere far away soon a giant tree will fall to its death, slowly, inexorably. Maybe when it finally hits the ground, there will be a huge shudder, shaking an entire region. But, if no one is there to see it or feel it, will it ever have mattered, or even be able to be said to have happened?

Far away from the scene of the fall, lives will continue to be lived as if nothing is the matter, nothing has been lost. All will continue on as if this is a normal state of being.

The heat rises here. A breeze also blows, offering relief. But there is no relief for the restless, nor for the broken-hearted.

Just utter silence, waiting, but no one can say for what.