it's in the air...
I slow down, here, for this moment because I am listening.
Because I am listening, I close my eyes. I hear... fans, a sigh, the faint hint of music as the garage band down the street rumbles out practice.
I hear my thoughts as they clatter about in my mind. They possess a hushed roar that is their own--it is separate, and solitary. I feel the calm settle over my face, it smooths my skin and relaxes the pinched tautness of my brow. I allow myself a small smile because I know it's superficial. It truly is only skin deep. It is a true laying on of mask but even this is ok.
If I smooth the surface I can occasionally push that calm beneath. I breathe slower, each inhalation is deliberate, considered. I push further outward with each exhalation. I pause now and touch each racing thought, with a mental fingertip I give a gentle nudge... "quiet now. Mmm, you too, hush. Just... oh, just for now."
I grow still. I become quiet.
I allow myself to fall.

I wander and wonder beyond and outside the "rules".
I listen and I watch and I wait. I do this, because this is what I do.
This is what I have always done.
I listen. I watch. I wait.
In this space and this moment, I answer to nobody. There is no need.
They see through my eyes. They feel through my touch.
I wait because They wait.
I don't know who They are... this is just the thought that randomly enters my mind & then leaves...

My hair is loose, long & soft against my cheeks. It's warm & smells of soap. I hear the humming engine & squealing brakes of the garbage truck move past on the street outside. I hear a buzzing in my ears. & still the fan.
My posture sucks, & I tell myself, "sit taller, staighter." I breathe more deeply... within seconds I'm slouching again.. I'm sitting cross-legged in my makeshift office chair and my thighs are complaining a bit. I adjust, push into the stretch, it hurts. But when I release, my thighs sigh & don't complain.

I sit and I breathe, and I rest--just for this moment.

Then I open my eyes. I feel my stomach flip, clench & fight against a wave of nausea. I feel the anxiety flood through my system... my heart races, skips a beat. My chest hurts. My back hurts, there is a headache revving up somewhere deep inside my head. I am light-headed & I forget to breathe. My eyes ache. My body is beyond aching, having entered some realm beyond even that.
I count minutes, I count breaths. I count as I sing, I count as I drive. Numbers move about in complex equations through my head... I run budgets, checkbook balances, monthly estimated incomes & expenses. Numbers flood my mind--random mathematics, making order of chaos... & I count & I count & I count. I tick away seconds until I can disappear again. Or I tick away seconds until the time when I can allow myself to fall again, to go quiet again... to rest again.

I walk down the sidewalk & I raise my face to the sky. I know where the line of shadow from the brim of my hat meets the light of the sun upon my face. It crosses my lips in a diagonal. I lift myself up, I float along the lines of fluff that would be clouds as they skim this surreal blue of sky.
I breathe deeply, filling my insides with the cold air and the smell of this Spring morning.