Impermanence

This morning I woke to the sound of rain on my windows.

My curtains were open, the sky and its clouds seemed to be on my doorstep.

He seems unsettled today, the wind; howling and screaming tones I can’t understand – although, he’s been awake for hours and I, only a few minutes.

I watched, as his breath dragged his feelings across the land in front of me, ripping tree leaves from their stems, their stems from branches. I watched him talk; watched him decide what stays and what goes. With this, I considered and apprehended that everything, us and that is around us, is impermanent.

I stayed with this tone of thought throughout my morning, my mind scanning the present and past, storing memories of moments that won’t last.

I began to think that the level of one’s gratitude is determined by their attitude, and that to understand our internal we must carefully handle our external.

Impermanence; even in the shower I couldn’t shake nor clean this word of me. I stood there, warmed and soapy, my thoughts heavy and sticky. What am I?

What is that which surrounds me?

My mind, my body, my possessions, and my obsessions. Without them, what would I be? Without everything I purchase, dress myself in, and fill my mind with, what is left?

What is a peacock without its show feathers? Just an oversized bird, really.

I got out of the shower in conclusion: what I am is defined by what I surround myself with.

Everything I collect: sneakers, skate jeans, paintbrushes, art history essays; all these pieces form the puzzle to my Self.

They define and enable my identity, that part of me that speaks, decides what to eat, determines what I find witty and what I find pretty.

The idea of how prettiness is defined by how one appears really triggers me.

Do I actually find those last four people attractive or do I just like what they’re wearing: their beanie and their skateboard? My brothers would say it’s the latter. What do they see when they look at me?

Who do they believe me to be? A beachy-haired girl who could be more skinny, her bum a little more peachy, her eyes a little less dreamy.

What is it that you like about what you have surrounded yourself with, is it necessary for who you are, who you want to be or who you’re meant to be?

What am I without what defines me? I picture myself, as a honeybee resting on a flower’s leaves after a long sunny day of kissing their inner seams.

I picture a forest, softly lit with sunbeams, my eyes through a butterfly that is dancing amongst the trees, studying and reading their leaves as if they are the poetry of calligraphy, written only for her eyes to see.

These visions remind me that we are not what we are attached to, they remind me to question what I think I see myself as, what I surround myself with.

Does this action, thought, or purchase serve me or am I preserving an identity that I wish others to see and believe me to be?

Everything we think about ourselves, the thoughts themselves, are impermanent.

We pay for clothes that will one day fray, cheap makeup that will be washed away. What we buy, what we post, what we drape ourselves in, will change and be rearranged to match the currents of the wind that swirl that day.

So the question that I am left with is: are we what each other see or are we all a mystery?

Acting like trees: growing bark to cover what’s underneath, or blooming like flowers: sprouting petals to disguise the surrounding nettles. What do you use to cover what makes you, you? Is what surrounds you true, or are you pinned together with unmatched feathers.

Whether the sound matches the rhythm or its time to retune, weave a new pattern for our cocoon, what comforts me is that this weather makes me think that the wind must get dizzy and tired too.