like a thousand brush strokes...

Today has been quite a roller coaster of emotions... the peculiarity is in the fact that nothing out of the ordinary occured. I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock just as the 100 or so days behind, bathed and headed to school, attended classes and hung out with friends, laughed and conversed... and almost out of habit, camped out in the library until night fall reading lenghty dissertations on metaphysics... That was what occured on the outside at least... internally I came together and fell apart repeatedly and honestly lost count... like an oscillating universe.

I think I'm ok though, honestly this is no new territory for me and I intend on pulling through. Sure some days are worse than others...and there are severely intense moments when the air feels as heavy as lead...but I get through them too placing one foot in front of the other, taking one laborious breathe after another.
And what can I conclude? But that this is life and as the fatalist would proclaim: "we must have it any way it comes."

I am back to embracing the small moments, the moments we often take for granted because of the subtly of their nature. People generally live for the grand moments, weddings, graduations, promotions and births...and these may rightfully bring us great pleasure... but we often risk missing out on the nuances of life... perhaps it is these nuances that provide for the grander experiences... like the thousands of tiny brush strokes it takes for a painting to mean anything.

This evening I drove home with the windows down because the city didn't feel real enough...I needed to hear the sound of bustling cars and find the smell of gasoline burning in the air... As I turned the dark corner into my neighborhood, the scent of burning wood and the feeling of cold reached my senses, immediately causing my mind to bring up the fondest holiday memories I have to date...memories of cold evenings spent with my warm family... I saw my grandmother's house for a brief moment, which was always decorated to a beautiful excess. The cotton snow that covered her armoires, the tiny village of houses that lit up and the collection of soldiers that filled the house with songs of Christmas by rining bells in a programmed succession... I could even smell cookies warming in the oven-teasing our appetites... Most of all I saw my parents when they were younger and still appeared to me invincible, my beloved cousins, brother, and my Uncle Jim, Aunt Lottie, and my Grandmother all together in that old house under the soft glow of Christmas lights... and though I knew that I was simply having a recollection, I couldn't help but smile and feel pleasantly nostalgic.

Of course it's been years since we've all been together like that... and time has taken from me three of my loved ones. For those of us that still remain, we've all grown older. And the holidays have taken a much different form... there is less mystery, less anticipation... the things that seem to fade with age...

The human brain is said to store memories of specific incidences in the temporal cortex, which is the lower portion of the organ. It is true that some unpleasant experiences are to be found here, but we need this area to recall all the moments we long deeply to hold on to... and these moments that we have grown to cherish are more than random images that have been impressed on our minds... so long as we may keep them, they may be a source for the subtle joys I spoke of... where the whispers of pleasure are released...where the shadows of happiness are cast... And tonight I relish this moment, even though it is but a memory.