An Old Woman

On my way home tonight, I was stagnant, with dying dreams in my head. The cold air was heavy with filth and fumes, and I passed by houses hollowed and abandoned by memories both happy and bitter, its people moved on to fabled lands, while I remained, and hoped, and dreamt, and planned, and lost; consigned to the torture of reminiscences, forever in the limbo between failure and hope.

Then she was there: On a sidewalk, exerting her dominion over tattered treasures, oblivious to concepts of dignity, focused on surviving, making my whimpers apparent and embarrassing.

When I left, she was still there, and the forlorn, hopeless sight lifted my spirits up a bit. Though tinged with cruelty, the miserable among us find perverse comfort in the sight and smell of the hopeless.

Beginnings

We're done with the rituals of welcoming yet another year. I personally feel that a new year starts off as somewhat sluggish, probably from the daze and hecticness of the holidays that immediately precede it. Then, it slowly reclaims its lost pace, the swiftness by which the alternation of night and day becomes mechanical and unforgiving, never stopping for love or happiness or death or grief.

Time's unstoppability exacts a toll on my dreams. I have finite time and limitless dreams. I know I should move faster and do more, but while time moves forward in a straight line, dreams, or mine at least, flit and glide and fly to each and every direction they please. Chasing them sometimes throws me off-paths, and occasionally I get lost, losing precious time in the process.

I begin another year because time commands me to. I breathe under its dictates. It allows me bits of pleasure, though: Reminiscences of moments of love, moments of inexplicable insight and joy, of faith and hope. It'll keep me in suspense each day, bringing both strange and wonderful things to my doorstep. It will, at least, allow me beginnings.