siren

i am waiting for something.

Do you feel tension in the air around you? I do, every moment of every day. I hear something ringing, a sound I can never place, and it drones on just as quiet and faint everywhere I go.

Except, sometimes, it turns into something more like a scream. Or a chorus. It never lasts long but when it comes it’s all I can hear. It comes from people around me, from songs I hear on the radio or Pandora or wherever, from things I see on television or books I pick up. It is the frog song of change that is unable to be ignored, ever-present, surrounding me. Something climactic is waiting past the threshold of coming years, and I am pushing through the crowd to be one of the first to bring it into the room.

I know so many people just in my everyday life who are unhappy. They are afraid of something they cannot name. Fearful for their livelihood, for their children, for their community and even their nation. I can feel the dread hanging over everyone I see in a supermarket, looming like a reaper, smelling like rusting machinery. In the summertime the specters become restless and I can sense them even when I’m alone. I have enough of my own worries to deal with, and yet they never know when to leave me be.

It may very well be self-centered of me to even entertain a notion that I’m anything unique. When I walked through Manhattan two months ago I lost myself in the sea of collective consciousness of the city, the united, lived experience of every single person around me, melding into one spiritual entity. It was exhilarating, realizing how un-alone I truly was. Nothing was more freeing than being one in a million. The stars don’t care if I do something wrong. Mother Earth will keep turning even if I don’t get out of bed. I feel as though my cosmic insignificance is the only thing keeping me going. If all eyes were on me I’d die just from the pressure.

If I have anything to offer this planet that I am a part of I believe it might be my heart. I have a mind, a fine one, I think, but more importantly I have a heart. I am human and I am in tune with the human experience, all its intricacies, all its failings and successes. My humanity and the humanity of those around me is the driving force behind all I do and all I fight for. I am an unrelenting optimist, I love all life on this blue planet, even the most insidious humans do not dissuade me from my ceaseless love. I love deeply and quickly and without reason or end. Is that a flaw? I don’t know. I’ve never been able to tell.