Sometimes I wonder why my roommate is hardly inside our dorm on weekends.
Outside for things much farther than class or required work. Into the corners of our town, outside of campus, in bars, meetup events, eateries?
Splashes of color saturate my eyes in our first gestalt principle critique. I wallow in the simplicity of my photos compared to the expressive, vibrant dynamics of my classmates.
The complexity of their more compelling photos drown me until my fingers curl in a bottomless thought pit. While submerged in liquid, insecure thoughts, I gather a clump of the soppy, sand-like pit beneath me. The weight of my thoughts seep between my fingers. It’s texture unwinds by the second and bits and pieces fall into the ground.
The remnants map out a meshed, beautiful pattern near my feet. A realization blurs when I narrow my eyes to examine the pattern more clearly:
This is what my roommate sees.
Outside of a boxed college dorm are lines, patches, patterns, shapes, beautiful reflections seeping into moist surfaces everywhere I walk. A morphed city light slithers in the reflection of puddles made by rain, hail, and whatever else our sky moistens our streets with. Parts of my daily life I cannot imagine without.
My surroundings grow more saturated when coated in rain, and puddles leak moist images that I enjoy most of all. Searching a reflection allows my cloudy, murky brain to expand until I filter it out.
My earlier realization sharpens with the notion I can’t capture this-the imagery that makes me so happy-if i don’t see them regularly. I’ll only have bits and pieces retained because it’s the best my memory can do. This inability only strengthens knowing most of my time is spent indoors or in front of a screen.
I really need to go outside more.
nemo 