Conversations with Self

Perfect, I think, 71 degrees F in the house, perfect, I think, with a cool breeze laden with soft tinctures of damp grasses sweep in through the office window, an unexpected delivery. Outside, the sun is flexing its blaze, awing the blue sky. Outside promises heat, the kind dreamed of during frigid winters.

My perfection doesn’t align with my wife’s idea of perfection. When 78 degrees inflamed the office and the windows were closed against the 92 degree heat outside, my wife declared her pleasure with the heat. “I’d rather be too hot than too cold.”

Yes, all of it is a spectrum, I speak to myself. Nothing seems absolute. Everything in our existence seems to be on a spectrum. I toy with the spectrum of spectrums that merge and blend into a spectrum of reality and existence.

Is truth somewhere on a spectrum? No, but our understanding of truth exists on a spectrum, the understanding, interpretation and application of truth and facts through spectrums.

Spectrums and cycles. I travel cycles of darkness and light, balancing along spectrums of happiness. Spectrums of determination and desire. Spectrums of energy and willpower. Nothing is black and white for me and my spectrums. Emotions, dream, urges and frustrations pedaling with frenzy, I cycle through my spectrums.

I’m going through a cycle of thinking that propels me toward optimism, joy and happiness on my spectrum. Are joy and happiness the same, I question, and cast a net to define the differences. Imagination intrudes. Story concepts take seed and bloom. I want to be done with what I’m writing so I can write more, explore these other ideas, discover these characters and their situations, lay out their story. I want to finish painting the guest room and the bathrooms’ trim so I can work on the yard, cut the grass, pull weeds, trim plants and bushes. I want to walk a long distance in the hot sun and free the sweat from my body. I want to load up junk, and clean the closets and drawers, and take items to the Goodwill, and I want to sit somewhere by an ocean’s side, smelling its breeze, hearing those waves, sipping a beer, or wine, alone or with others.

Life is good, in this spectrum’s neighborhood. And then, I tell myself, go edit. Go proofread. Go write. And I close the window, because the breeze is gone.