2006-01-03
cold comfort
Sometimes epiphanies are bland.
They can strike, but sometimes it's just a dull nudge or scrape, analogous to when I clumsily brush against someone's shoulder in the hallway. These epiphanies can be little "huh!"s and they are usually insipidly obvious when you uneloquently subject them to the quantification of words. "huh, you are different than me." "whoa, if I didn't know stuff about this already, it would mean nothing to me." "hrm, 'individual' has the word 'divide' in it. I wonder if that means anything."
I had one such realization today on my walk home. The sidewalks are so wet; they are somehow absorbing all the moisture as it sits within (who knew concrete had spongelike qualities?). In the surrounding slush, there are puddles. Some are deceptively dark. I was looking in the puddles on the way home, and I was astounded by the reflections that they create. When I peer downward into the shallow pockets of water, I see what I would see if I looked above. There are the branches of the trees. I love tree branches when they are bare. They seem so human to me, in a very cold yet (oxymornically) comforting way. Cold comfort. That may be very hard to explain. Sort of like the times when Petie and I scrape against each other in our different demeanors at the lockers, or how a teacher may be stern in a familiar and beneficial way. Knowing you can't sleep because you have something important tomorrow, in a contorted way. I'm not sure how to better evoke it. Pressing the "submit" button on an online college application. Huh, huh.
But the trees. They are so beautifully dry, yet the moisture of the puddle shows them in a new light that my own eyes can only begin the penetrate. The branches entangle when layered upon one another into a wicked, scribbled mess. Their linear chaos looks like what I would create had I charcoal and canvas on a frustrating, angst-filled day. Harsh strokes firmly stratched across; positively cold comfort. The angled branches echo hard images of heart capillaries and lung bronchiole. They extend up and outward, cutting through a clear view of the sky with a jagged grace. Such a silver and opaque shade when seen through the water. One less neglected perspective. I saw the trees through the puddle. What a wonderous, dull, obvious epiphany. 
leesah-likes at 5:03 p.m.