futurebird's Diaryland Diary
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the days fall down, marching towards Certain Nothing
this is what you see in pittsburgh, when you look at the skyline beyond the big rivers
We went down to see the rivers meet today. He has been a little depressed lately and nothing I say seems to help. I thought the river might cheer him up.
We caught the bus from downtown Oakland where the students and traffic are loud. We rode into the city all the way there I looked out the window. Nick always gives me the window seat and I love that. Since I don�t have a car I rarely see the world rolling by the way it dose when you ride along a car or bus. I looked at all the people in the city and tried to guess what their lives might be like.
When we got downtown we walked to the park and sat right on the edge and looked out over the greenish brown water. The rivers are huge and heavy. I wonder what it would be like to have been the first person to find them: to climb over a rocky tree covered hill and then suddenly see these huge, soundless, slow moving planes of water resting in the pit of the valley, rolling tons of water down to the gulf. I wonder if the water was ever clearer, I wonder what the point where the once wild rivers meet looked like before they hemmed it in with stone and steel for the barges and lined the banks with concrete so buildings could rest on its edge . . .
Nick seemed better when he was out in the air. Less of his circular way of talking about how much time he has �lost� over the past few years. Time is never lost. Even the downy feathers shed from the wings of fat pigeons into the mud in the gutters have an impact. Each tiny ripple in the rusty water is on its way to change the world. Everything you do matters. It adds up, in the long run.
Today I did no work. I didn�t write a word for the plays. I didn�t read anything but the news. But the day was not wasted. It is not lost. It is here in these words. If every day that passes is lost, like dreams from the dark of night that we never can recall when the day comes, what is the point of living?
I wonder if I asked a random person on the street �what did you do exactly three weeks ago?� I wonder if they could remember anything at all. We�re trapped in the present and it can be terrifying not to know where your time, you life has gone. It is terrible to be lost in the present watching the days fall down, marching towards Certain Nothing.
The only hope for us is to become rapt with the present-- or to write about the past. I�ve become too sad for the first to be an option so--- here it is.
12:08 a.m. - 2001-03-21
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