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Clean
I don't claim to know where my holiness goes...
11-16
- In this dream, it's raining outside.
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- I am standing at a window, watching rain fall. It's one of those winter storm days, where the air itself is a loose blanket of droplets, hanging suspended like lint on a freshly dried sweater. Looking through this window at the gray-tinted images outside, there are only hints of falling. It's not an insistent storm, no sheets angling to the horizon, no runoff tributaries gathering together into lakes at the edges of the roof.
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- It's just wetness, dripping down the edges of the air in a slow, forgetful dive towards the ground.
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- The sound above and around is soft, steady.
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- Hypnotic.
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- It's the kind of rain that falls so carefully that the glass I look through is completely untouched. No watery lines traced across the surface, no sudden contact with the elements exploding into colorless paint splotches. It's as if I'm in an aquarium, wondering why it is that the fish outside the wall move so strangely all the time.
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- I put my hand up to the glass, feeling the flat of my palm against the barrier.
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- It's cold to the touch.
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- You can feel it sometimes. Sense how it stays in one place while the rest of you moves.
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I walked away for an hour, but when I came back - my hand was still there. -
- I begin to remove my clothes.
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- Shirt cloth rising against my back until it contacts my neckline. With a nod I release it upwards and over. Legs freed from cover itch slightly against the air like some physiological handshake to break the tension and silence.
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- In this dream it is raining outside.
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- In this dream I am standing naked and alone.
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- It begins to rain all over again.
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- Leaning my head down towards the wall. I stand in the shower under pouring skies.
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- The water crashes and cascades off of me, rolling down my back into the steam all around. The heat pulsates easily through the skin, finding it's way to that nerve center between my shoulder blades.
My eyes are closed.
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- Pleasure... or necessity?
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- There is steam, condensation. Clouds rise from points of impact into the air. Long showers are flights of the soul. I suppose people can find wings in baths as well; but perhaps in my mind there is enough of a difference between immersion and contact that I feel the need to make the distinction.
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Do you find yourself under the water?
Do you fantasize?
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- All too often it becomes utility. All too often it is a tool, something to be unsheathed when the material needs to be cut a certain way. The texture of coffee with cream, the taste of smoke in your lungs, hot water against your hair. These are the methods we use to rinse off the previous night's dreams. These are the things I use to prepare for the long days away from myself.
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- Does it lessen them?
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- If I don't have a morning shower, if I somehow fall short of my regular two cups of coffee...
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- How can the heaven that is a long, steaming shower be reduced to... a reflex?
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- I can't remember all the days that started with wonderful showers. But I can't seem to forget the ones when there wasn't time... wasn't the chance. It makes you feel different. Not because your routine has been interrupted, or because there's a sense that's something's missing, or incomplete...
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- You can feel it sometimes. Sense how it stays in one place while the rest of you moves.
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- "It's only water," You say.
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- But it makes up so much of who I am
...can't you see that?
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- Come inside with me. Be a part of this storm, these clouds, this rain. Let me feel the heat radiate from you as the water pours down. Let me show you how this isn't just a way to feel refreshed, or awake...
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- In this dream, it's raining outside...
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- Open the door. Step inside the steam. Be there. Feel yourself waking. Let the warmth rise within. Find yourself under the water.
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- Put your hands on the glass,
steady against the storm.
give yourself to the temperature
...let the moisture find you.
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When I came back, my hand was still there.
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