day owl

Some of my earliest memories were of the night time.

Perhaps I can liken it to the fact that I was born in the late evening. I can recall being jet to the hospital during one of many childhood close calls, lying in my mother's arms, watching as red lights and strip malls smeared past us nearby, everything in those timid tones of seventies Polaroid, or of waking up overnight, bursting out of sleep in that padded sandbox I slept in during my first several years. After that it became late night vicarious literary thrills under quilted cover by flashlight or those restless nights that would find me strung up by bed sheet and covering at obtuse and acute angles across the bed.

It wasn't until I got a bit older that I would embrace my love for the four o'clock hour, when the sky is pitch black and there is a surreal post-apocalyptic stillness in the air. Time slows and recognition of how alone we all are becomes far more apparent or maybe just more within reach. It's a time of day when I have often been more able to get in touch with my soul and inner workings, where I would catch sight of my muse and write freely and live less inhibited. For years there was a small window of pure joy of this sort that the remainder of life could never quite compete and paled dismally to by comparison.

I have been a chameleon for years, blending into wallpaper and disparate groupings of people with aplomb, noticed only by a select view. Recently my brother-in-law, with a lick of judgment, posited that I was no longer the night owl of old. I also don't think I am quite the morning person I have been referred as, either, though. I adapt well. I think there is truth to be had in both. I believe I am in a warm place of personal soulful wellness that has allowed me to live every hour with complete verve.

That said, your last night out elicits thoughts in me about all of the local freebie rags full of college students looking buzzed, drunk, and overcome with cleavage. My life is full, but I don't keep myself overly social and full of alcohol to dull the pain like I have before. I still find my second wind when the moon is bright and drool over the thought of karaoke, which is where my last official night out would have occurred. It was low-key, drinks light on the mixer and heavy on the sting, and brimming with serenade. The pictures I have of it are stuck in my head. The camera comes out more frequently these days, but the sharing with whom-ever factor has dissipated to a point for want of a little more sacred.

that said . . .

a sampling of the results of our sense of romance
& a sense of my last evening out