Yesterday I had my weekly meeting with my manager. I like her office - it faces north / northwest. So during happy and smooth days, I am able to enjoy the varying seasonal views of Long's Peak while we chat. But, I went into this meeting agitated and frustrated with some work things. I had recently been issued a work laptop - right before the snowstorm last week - and while I was enjoying working on two separate screens as well as the afforded mobility, I was increasingly upset with how much slower the laptop was. I was working with half of my previous amount of RAM leaving me staring at my screen in exasperation waiting my computer to think and sort things out. I was dismayed at the idea of having a computer who couldn't keep up with my train of thought. Sometime during the meeting and working these things out, my stream of conscious turned into an alternative stream of subconscious. I have no idea where I was, but it was one of most heightened mind-bending experiences of my life sans tetrahydrocannabinol.
There was a period of time last year when we were in a different office that everyday in the afternoon, I would walk down the hall to the restroom and have a fairly intense deja vu experience in which my stream of consciousness reverted to the dream I had the night before. The memory would suddenly and profoundly hit me as an epiphany. I came to expect it and look forward to it daily. But yesterday, I was experiencing something that made reality a bit blurry. There is only one other deja vu experience that was that vivid to me - it involved cross country skiing under a full and silent moon in Winter Park. But in that case, it was as though I was really re-living something that had already happened or that I had already dreamed about. So, I suppose this more of a transitory semblance.
I lived the next few hours avoiding eye contact for fear my crazy would be reflected in my eyes, that if someone looked closely they would see alternative reality projected from my pupils and bleeding into the surrounding green. In addition to the immediate regret I felt for being too agitated, too frustrated, too willing to vent rather than eating it rather than it being natural for all that to roll of - because somewhere in my life I have been programmed to think that it all should roll off. Nothing should bother me. I should be able to happily and rationally deal with anything - deal with the most frustrating of circumstance (frustrating to someone else) calmly. Detecting my emotion is a detection of weakness. In addition to all that listed above in a run-on unfinished sentence, I had to figure out what of my thoughts were reality and what were that stream of sub-conscious. I cannot remember now what was running through my mind. It was a string of dreams and convoluted imaginations, I suspect.
Speaking of semblance rather than deja vu, it's snowing. Again. Except this week I left at the first snow flake or rather rain drop. I listened to the weather. I knew what was coming. And I was packed up and out of the office driving as the rain turned to snow as it made the roads sheets of ice. I was home. I am home. My laptop won't connect to our network, so I am unable to remote login. I am alone in my dimming apartment. The shadows are growing longer and the cool winter colors are growing deeper. The snow is falling progressively faster. I think 18 inches this time. . . I am watching the snow accumulate perfectly on the narrow branches of the tree outside that wind will blow off. Undisturbed snow in long narrow mounds on branches is like morning hoarfrost – just a moment. It is just a moment. Wind comes. And blows. Sun comes. And melts. There are too many regular days that go by. Where the commute goes smoothly and it’s sunny and 60. Where I go to work, get everything done and go home. But the moments where you get to leave work early to go home and play. Where you get to watch evening snow pile up on branches. These are moments I am annoyed with? That I hastily brush aside because I am too busy to deal with them? They should give me pause. These are momentary phrases. Incomplete sentences. Disruptions. Long stretches of normal will return soon enough.
Ray Lamontagne is playing in my ears. It’s my favorite over and over and over music as of late. Or as my freshman in college cousin would say “I’m totally obsessed with it.” It was playing deeply on my stereo these recent hours, but I needed it in my head. I needed it to be inside of me. So my Bose headphones are in my ears, and Mr. L is in my head. And the snow falls. And I am in the moment. So I am happy for the déjà vu – it is an illusion of something that happened before. It didn’t happen like this last week. I was too busy trying to get out of the moment. Wishing time away. Blowing snow off the branch.
The momentary halt of time creates a thick succession of palpable moments. There is no where to go. I am warm and safe and rich in mindfulness. I have the key to my own mini-bar and I already paid for the Cheetos in my snack corner. (See previous snow-stranded post). A co-worker just called and so as though in deep prayer, I have to get up and move a bit. Reluctantly re-enter the greater world.
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