Counting Cars on the New Jersey Turnpike.

They've been saying "I love you" from far away.

A Negotiable Term, What Gets Said's Not What's Heard.

I took my tea outside this morning to watch the light aurify the flowers in the garden. Maybe I turned to gold to, for a moment, immobilized by a naive awe of the world which only ever happens early.

I can't help but worry the words are directed at me when Oberst sings "so you're giving advice as if you had the right to use a word like 'love,'" but then again, whatever small amount of wisdom I've found inside me tells me no matter what the trouble, choosing love will always be worth it.

Crash.

Easing my way back down to whatever sort of normalcy I personified before, I seem to have hit the bottom harder than I would have expected.

It physically hurts my heart. Nothing new, though.

I have come to terms with the fact that my conflict wasn't societal so much as internal. Where I'm having trouble drawing conclusions is how I feel in regard to the past month or so. I suppose now that I've made the decision to come back down, it doesn't matter so much.

I could really get used to you loving me again anyway.

Mountains.

I finally got out into the woods as I'd been dying to do for a while. The trail I took was one I hadn't been on in more then ten years. As I walked, my vaguely remembered familiarity with the mountain made me smile. Eventually I came to a little clearing where a large boulder had been deposited by a melting glacier thousands of years ago, a place that's existence had been buried deep in my subconscious for more than half my life.

I had a flashback to being a very small child, with the same light caught up in the trees, and our long-lost family friend, with his faded red sox cap and salt-and-pepper beard, hoisting me up onto the slanting rock face.

On my return I was able to pull myself up and scramble to the top ridge of the boulder where there was a perfect indent for sitting. I stayed for a few minutes in the warmth of reminiscence and then decided I should continue up the trail if I wanted to get to the summit for it got too dark.

Ten more minutes of hiking and I remembered Jack Kerouac's musings over an old Zen saying in his book Dharma Bums, "When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing."

Within a second, I had turned around and was on my way back down to the rock with a better way to get to the top in mind.

I climbed up the cool grey of the stone once more and sat to meditate.

Wind of Change.

Impermanence does not favor, especially me. The only things that seem to stay now are the frustration, the desperation, the guilt and fear.

I'm suspended above the ground. Less than an inch. I want to feel the green earth on my palm but I'm stuck in a dark void of space. I'm looking for words. Any words. Lend some to me?