Lullabies for the discontent

Complicated and strained words for a particular moment that made me think too much, too quickly.

I adore the nights as soft and quiet as this one. I wait for them, where my mind can clearly see all that I love right here and right now, not worry about what we leave behind or how far we are from where we are going… Sentiment is precious, but I tend to overdo it. Attaching myself to these moments where the small and beautiful things in life astonish my simple mind in a way that is unfathomable, yet is not overwhelming. I don’t think, but contemplate. I don’t hear any words, yet feel them, spelt out in the cotton candy clouds and the way that my friend’s eyes dart from one spot on the horizon to another.

They are all content too, or at least trying to be. Attempting to put the perfect world around them into a simple yet abstract contemplation that you would like to leave your eyes teary, yet adds up just as frustratingly well as it needs to. I wonder whether or not their minds relax in these moments like I try to. When you don’t fathom any expectations of what is coming, and give in to the fact that nothing will ever feel so real as it does here and now. I assume they feel this too. If not now, sometimes. I hope now.

Two of them watch the world moving outside of the car, while one watches the screen that lays beside me with a look of complete contentment, as if he is dreaming wide awake. I like to imagine that this is his current escape from any pressures, just like mine is watching him and her. It didn’t take, how the little things are different to everyone, and not often so sentimental. Watching friends as they watch a sunset in a soft-spoken car full of the lullabies of stress-free music is something I can grasp, and something I truly love. In part, the beauty of our natural world is something that stretches me thin across an impossibly joyful plain, but it is a type of good I cannot make sense of. My people, though? Seeing my people, try to fathom what is purely and restlessly impossible, is the most beautiful thing in the world. Imprinted in my mind, a reminder that too much can be just enough. A reminder that love is not objective and that you are allowed to not know. I love to imagine that they feel the same stressful workout in their minds as they try to take in everything around them whilst not thinking too much about it. I love to imagine how both similar and abstract we all are when we’re broken down into a brief moment like this one. It’s far from simple, but it is so happy if you let it be.

Without the usual frustrated buzz that swims around my friend’s heads rendering me incapable to unravel this moment like a scroll, the car becomes a conscious balance of enticement. Although I do not know of what his mind is occupied by, I do know of him and her and I know of me. The control freak in me is taunted by the enigma that my heart longs for, in knowing that it is okay to not understand in the way that he might. The slightest and less prominent perceptive part of me can appreciate the diverse intimacy that tastes different to everyone who comes upon it, and learn to love the way someone else’s world can reflect the same moment.

As I watch him watch the screen through the mirror beside my head, I wonder if he is thinking about how imperfect and wonderful this moment is. I wonder if he attempted to take in the world on the outside of this box. I wonder if he tried, as I do, felt overjoyed for a simple and miniscule moment, and then returned to contentment in knowing that that moment was had, and that he can always go back to it. Like his eyes glazed over in a casual tranquil show, if we don’t think, we can move through time. Although I latch onto this wonderment, I know these moments aren’t so complicated to everyone.

More human, I turn to my other people. The people who don’t want to lose these moments and slowly watch as the sky tries to slip away from us, coaxing it to stay. I don’t know what they think about, but the thought of it makes me smile.