Cold illumination seeps through our tiny black window, pouring specular highlights across coal brown eyes. Porcelain white skin, fading smooth gradations of silky perfection into soft, refined features.
Glossy hair. Warm smiles.
She is new to this world , tip-toeing through delicate times. Through her, I am afforded perspective on my own life. My own past.
I remember how my future seemed to be an obligatory map of "here" to "there". How I was so focused on the destination, that I couldn't see the path that lead the way. How we, as a generation, stumble across the planes, changing course with the wind, ever seeking the correct destination.
There is so much to learn at that age, but it always seems to take years to fully understand that the future is never important until it becomes a part of your past. A destination is an end, and we are all bound to meet the same.
What you "will do" doesn't matter, the speculative and the certain futures won't happen if there isn't a tomorrow.
In the end, we must live our lives, not in an effort to obtain a more opulent future, but in efforts to build a better obituary.
I see her, and I know that she has years to understand this. She is discovering new things about herself with every day that she breathes.
Her eyes fix on me with attentive presence, but they are nothing more then a pretense, a fa�ade covering the vacancy. Her mind has taken up residence in some other place, on some other thing.
These are the snapshots that your heart takes, only to be lost amid the dust of days. We can only be affected by that which we choose to notice.
Between lighting changes, I steal a glance at what she's scribbling on that little yellow notepad. She pauses every few moments to reconsider her word usage, to play the phrases in her mind until it all filters down into the perfect "Dr. John" letter.
