Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sleepless In McMinnville

I can't sleep and I feel the dawn approaching quickly. I lay here in the dark listening to the sound of my feet shuffling in and out of my blankets. The nights are the most lonliest time; theres no one awake to talk you down from this insomniac state and the only thing willing to keep you company are the whitewash walls starring back you shadowed by streetlamp light and tree branches. My computer rests on my carpet and I hang half my body over the edge of my bed typing away the seconds. My hands look old in this faint light and I watch them as they sluggishly move across the keyboard. I wonder how many more sleepless nights this summer will bring me fore many have already come in the passing months.
Today I sat outside in a small field behind my house on a stump in the middle of a bushel of wildflowers. The breeze was cool and the bee's were friendly. I took the time to write a letter, not that letter writting is any sort of a favorite past time of mine, but it gave me something to do. I wrote to a friend that I miss dearly, one I haven't seen in countless days and one I won't see for countless more. I told them about the weather, how warm the sun was on my bare feet, and about how absolutley cloudless the sky was. I told them about the grass...oh how sweet it smelled, as if the very essence of summer rested in it's ability to smell as sweet as it did. I could here tennis players passing the ball back and forth at the campus nearby and I told my friend about that too; about how the ball popped everytime it slammed into the opponents racket --- pop pop skid pop. The skidding of their tennis shoes across the cement seemed to echo more than the popping ball but I didn't mind. I told them about the relationship between the gusting breeze and my loose strands of hair as they were pushed across my cheek every few seconds despite my avid tucking of them behind my shoulders; I didn't mind that either. I told them about the thorns from a neighboring rose bush that made quick friends with my elbow. It's scrapings left little white marks on my arm and a few holes in my sleeve but I didn't seem to mind that much either. Nothing could take me away from that moment, alone in a field watching wildflowers dance in the summer sun, doing what I love doing the most...writting.
The rest of the day didn't prove too eventful and the time before that wasn't anything worth boasting either, but the hour I spent away from the world made the day all seem worth it; maybe even worth this sleepless night.
-Toby K.