That Which We Do Not See

Even the most intelligent of our species fail, time and again, to appreciate the beauty of the world around them.

They rush from Point A to Point B with their faces in cell phones,


and their heads so far removed from the best of their reality that they dream only of alternates: bigger homes; bigger paychecks; more beautiful spouses.

But what of perfectly formed snowflakes, glistening on windshields? What of shadows and sunspots

-- simple smiles or autumnal leaves forever orange (frozen in ice)?

It has taken me a long time to realize that not everyone sees the world as I do.


Which isn't to say there's anything special about me; only that it's with good reason that words such as "weird" and "quirky" are so often used to describe me.


But it is this same personality trait that compels me to seek out the like-minded,


ever hopeful that I will stop to take a picture and the person beside me will understand precisely why I'm fascinated by complex equations,

or a certain slant of light.


Together we will slay dragons with our laughter, run circles around Lake Michigan, and wiggle our toes through the morning dew.


But emotion, as with life, is a one-sided beast:

a landslide that consumes the very thing it loves, leaving eternity-old lessons in its wake.

You can depend on no one in this world.

Which is to say:

You are alone.

It is this very lesson that I find myself confronting again, even as I try -- perhaps now more than ever -- to disprove lifelong hypotheses.

But am I falling again?

Failing?


Cornering myself into the circumference of infinity?


There's no denying it, I think, staring out of my window and into stained glass: this life is a loop, doomed to repeat itself.

And so I do, the record and the needle bouncing inconsolably between the bitter and the sweet;

the beautiful laughter and the desolate sigh.

Which is to say, there's only one lesson to be had here, and you already know it:


The people you love will not recognize you even as you stand before them:

And yet they will remember you, beautifully and painfully,

when you are gone.