Why I Smiled When At Sedona

The stones were fiery red. They stretched all over the horizon blocking everything behind me. When I reached out to touch the fissures, the early morning sunlight had not yet warmed the chill of the night on them.

Sedona, Chapel of the Holy Cross, did not disappoint.

The Americas of the midwest was a different country. Far, far away from the antiseptic cosmopolitanism of New York City and the unsettling bonhomie of yuppie Brooklyn.

The low wall overlooking the desert vista was empty. Early mornings have that advantage. Solitude. Solitude, and therefore crisper memories. There are less things to remember, less sounds to block out.

There was the occassional visitor who was ardent enough to make it this early. Thankfully we all seemed to want to stay out of each others’ line of sight.

Not a bad place for a smoke. A slow drag to fill the lungs and a contemplative exhale. But even before the image was fully formed in my mind I knew it would be a bad idea. Nicotine somehow does not appeal anymore. Atleast not in such surroundings.

I have this compulsive habit of mulling on something always. An ever running looping psychadelic account of my experiences and knowledge untethered from reality. A waking dream that incorporates pictures, people, landscapes and ideas into a mass of incomprehensible emotions.

I do it because I like it.

When I feel sad I throw the reasons of sadness into that morass and it disappears leaving behind a little aftertaste of the sentiment. When lust hits me I dilute it the same way sometimes. Sometimes I hold onto the emotion and sometimes I clone it so that I can process it multiple ways. One of my recurring nightmares is that of a mad scientist crystallizing and extracting it from me as I scream and strain, strapped in a dentist’s chair.

Today was euphoric though.

Guilty of feeling this rapturous I tried sobering down with my fears. Am I overreaching in life? How much is enough to see my family through till their extinction? Am I not doing enough good? Somewhere in Borneo an Orang Utan is being burnt along with rainforests to grow palms for oil to feed snotty children. Children whose parents are trapped in a cycle of earning and dissipating and non existence. Can I really love as much as I can hate?

It was no use. I tell you, I was ecstatic. I could feel surges of vitality pulsing from the sole up, from the palm inward and from the head down, all currents meeting and bursting within me. I gave in. Sometimes, no, very often, my body knows more than I can sift through.

If there was a reflective surface I would probably have snapped out of this reverie. It is a corporeal thing.

There will be time for fears and aches later. Not today. Not now.