DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

By the Lake

The lake to my left sheds bursts of color, as each wave overlaps another.  The crests reach the shore, gestures of nature, welcoming those that love it, and disbanding those that don’t.  I have come to realize that if I don’t love it now, if I don’t stand by it during these warm, humid days, reality may get the best of me, and I will be alone through the winter months; those many revolutions around the sun; cold, cruel, and crystal-clear as ice.

I make sure to stay to the right- always the right, because who knows what may happen when a biker may lose his sense of reality, to an Eminem song, blasting to his ears through his IPhone.  I’m not Mr. N’Sync, I’m not what your friends think, are the words that spurt from his probably-sunburned lips as he swerves past me on the uphill turn that I dread on really windy days.  My runs are like the puddles to my right, where the water runoff from last night’s thunderstorm ended up- if you avoid them at the right time, you’ll end up alright.  Then again, getting caught in the rain can be fun- it can be a blessing- it’s when you know you’re screwed but you have to see it through, and at that moment when you find shelter under a bridge, you curse the fact that you are soaked, but you’ve never felt so liberated.  I don’t know if that’s how you feel, but I do. 

On winter days that aren’t as cold as the people of Chicago are used to, I bundle up and go for a walk, instead of running, by the lake.  My hands find shelter from the cold wind that burns whatever it hits.  I hide them deep in my pockets, where no one can see them, but, of course, they are there.  The only thing that might deny that the unseen really exists is that which provokes it.  This is what is in the back of my head while I write, but I still don’t fully understand it.  Sometimes I just wear gloves, and I only dig my right hand in my right pocket to take out my IPhone to change the song that is playing on Pandora.  The waves hit the shore even harder than they do in the summer; seemingly.  Who knows what really happens when you are not happy enough to accept what is going on in your life?  If the water was warm, would I jump in?  Only if it was in the summer time.  And only if the space above the water was equally warm.

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.