Heavy snowflakes fall and melt. Filling the sky, pixelating the scene with their white presence, it’s warm and cozy in the coffee shop. Most have laptops or phones and attend their electronic lords with religious focus. But consensus comes as patrons and employees remark on the snowfall beauty. They like this weather, it’s agreed– as long as it doesn’t get too cold, too deep, or too slick.
Monday’s Wandering Thought
He opened a cupboard. Floofs hurried over and peered in. They do this whenever he opens any door. He can hear them talking to one another. “Look! A secret door.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know. Wonder where it leads?”
“Maybe we can use it to escape.”
Because they always feel like they must escape this life of comfort.
The Towel Dream
I found myself as a young man at a wide, flat river. Dark as a winter night, the river didn’t reflect any light.
It was a cold day. Swimmers filled the river. They were heading downstream. I was not a swimmer, but walked among them as they came out of the water, giving them towels, talking to them and encouraging them.
Three swimmers caught my eye. One female, two males, all young, one black, one brown, one white, nothing extraordinary about them. Like the other swimmers, they wore swimsuits, and these weren’t anything special. Yet, watching them, I thought, keep an eye on them.
Seeing them leaving the water, I rushed to get them towels. All the towels were blue or gray; I wanted different colors for these three. I thought different colors would highlight them and help me keep watch on them. I ran around asking for other colored towels, and then demanded those towels. At last, red, yellow, and white striped beach towels were brought to me. I hurried over and gave the towels to those three.
Someone else with towels asked me what I was doing, etc. I explained that I wanted to keep an eye on those three. The other queried, “Why?”
“Because they’re special,” I explained. And then I knew, “They’re not part of this world. That’s why I wanted to give them special towels.” I gathered insight that the blue and gray towels muted people. Colors brought them more alive, bringing out talents. I said, “They’re shapeshifters from somewhere else, but they don’t know it. They can be anything, but the towels are keeping them unaware.”
After saying that, I took in the rest swimming by or toweling off and wondered, why don’t we give them colored towels, too?
Today’s Wandering Thought
He thinks about the things he uses, enjoys, and curses every day. Computers and cars, sandwiches and plastic, phones and music. So different from 200 years ago. He tries to place himself there, struggling to see himself as a person in those times, without these things, and pretty miserably fails. Would he have been a teacher or shopkeeper, a farmer or soldier? Depression rolls over and sighs.
Wednesday’s Wandering Thought
Some journeys take you exactly where you know you’re going. You know exactly what to expect when you arrive. Other journeys are just a stopover in the larger picture.
But some journeys are mystical. You don’t know if it’s the final stop or the start of a full new journey. All you can do is wonder.
The Writing Moment
Sometimes during the writing day, he experienced irrational exuberance. Other times, he endured unallayed depression. In all the other work he’d done during his lifetime, he’d never experienced such highs and lows, almost in the same hour.
His moods were like a weird extreme weather system, a blizzard in one second, sunny and clear upon the next.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thought
His shoes were lined up in the closet. One pair had the sides reversed. He had to fix them before going on. The right shoe on the left side just looked too wrong.
Michael Seidel, writer 