I'm Back!

Height

Three arched-ceiling stories of separation
Is all it takes
For me to stop considering their wants.
Their thoughts,
Which pulled at my curiosity
As they passed inches from my shoulders
Have ceased, now that all I see
Are hats, hair, and similitude.

Perhaps this is where perspective comes from,
The inability to care about the tops of heads
The minute manifestations of singularity,
Slumped shoulders, a quickened gait,
So easily ignored.

If I, from my third-floor, library perch,
Can't associate the faceless masses
Filling sidewalks, destined for work,
With individuals, with sadness,
With a rushed cup of coffee
Or a dropped phone,
And an almost-silent curse,
As the bent-over break in traffic,
The diverging flow of heads and hats
Are the only evidence I have that something happened,
What must the sixty-floor man think,
Corner office filled with framed faces
As specks of color scuttle below
So easily reduced.

And what of the churches rising from the house-lines
Towering over the run-down rentals,
The men behind stained glass peering down
At the tops of heads?
If it's the eyes which are windows to the soul
Do they see me walking below, my head,
My red jacket, my metronomic stride,
Or do they only see the multitude
The sidewalked masses?

Poem:
I spent a lot of time in a library looking out a window, and this is just one if the things u noticed. When I pass a stranger on the sidewalk, a part of me wonders what's going on in their head, what their life holds or means to them. But when I looked down, nothing of the sort occurred to me. Perspective is a funny thing.

Observation/Me:
For those of you who don't know, I spent the last week in Springfield, Missouri. Missouri State University there has the best handball program in the country, and their coach told me to see if I could enroll there after seeing me play in Kansas City. I went down for a tournament they held last weekend and stuck around to meet with their graduate school and attend some practices. Unfortunately, none of the departments or office had funding available, so it doesn't look like I'll be going there. While there, however, I had a lot of free time. As usual, I wasted the overwhelming majority of it, but I did do some blogging-style stuff. I didn't get it uploaded because I was mostly on campus, and since I was using my iPad (and the Internet there was only accessible to students), I decided to wait raher than wander until I could find free wireless.

Another thing which was noteworthy about my trip was my accommodation situation. I stayed in my car. I do this at most tournaments I attend in order to save money. I could have stayed with someone from the handball team, but after talking to them I got the imorssuon they were much more interested in drinking than I was, so I opted to keep staying in my car. Cntinuing my quest to conserve the number of dollars I have, I also bought pretty basic food. Essentially, I became a hobo for a week. It was not the incredibly fun time I was expecting. It turns out sleeping in a car is uncomfortable and that eating cold deli meat sandwiches for almost every meal is less than stellar. With that in mind, here's some stuff I wrote last week.

I went to walmart to purchase some food, bought the cheapest deli meat, cheese, and bread I could find (based on price per ounce), and still wound up spending almost twenty dollars (after you factor in the bagels I also bought. And sales tax. And a pumpkin pie). I thought to myself, "for that price, I could just eat at a buffet and save some money. But having consumed almost all of that food, I am assured I made the right decision. It lasted me four full meals and I still have five bagels left. The buffet would have replaced at best two meals, and probably would have resulted in severe discomfort. Granted, I am currently in moderate discomfort, but I believe that to be the fault of eating an entire pie. I think I may have consumed approximately one too many of those in the past twenty-four hours (give or take a few pieces). It can't possibly be my fault, though; I blame whoever it was that made pumpkin pie so delicious.

I wrote that on Monday. Walmart is selling pumpkin pie for less than three dollars. Enough said.

Later in the week (Thursday or Friday), I wrote this:

I realized yesterday that my diet of bread, meat, cheese, and more bread wasn't really fulfilling my fruit and vegetable requirements, so I walked into walmart with the intent of rectifying the situation. Ten minutes later I emerged with the makings for even more sandwiches and blueberry muffins. And an apple pie. I ate a muffin, consuming somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half blueberries, and thought maybe I could have gone about acquiring fruit in a better way. A couple of sandwiches and a piece of pie later, and I am full, but not quite content. I'm currently craving salty snacks and thinking back on the chocolate cake a narrowly talked myself out of buying.

The upside of eating bland sandwiches for a week is that my first meal once I got back was amazing. Flavor, while perhaps unnecessary, is amazing! More about my trip will follow shortly, I hope. It's good to be back.