Sunnier Places

With all the gloom and doom in Chicago this week... I'm thinking of sunnier places.

At the moment, I'd rather be here.....

Familiar Faces

I tend to take the 6:53am bus or the 7:12am bus to work. After a while, I started to recognize the drivers, and some of the frequent passengers on each route. 

I recognize the workers at Jamba Juice, and the one who remembers my name even though I only come in about once a month. 

The cashier at 7-11 says good morning and smiles just a little when I come into the store for my coffee. I smile back... and he's usually got my order almost rung up before I get to the counter. He is usually just checking to see whether I added any bottled water or juice to my coffee and breakfast choice. 

Sonny's recognizes me if its the owner of the store... I'm usually running in for either extra butter or dairy I don't normally keep on hand but need for banking, or to hit the ATM. He asks me what I'm baking now. 

The facilities guy at our office building is usually unlocking the swivel doors about the time I get there. Sometimes we cross the street together if he's gone across for a newspaper. 

I wonder if they ever notice me too... 

Music in words

Guy De Maupassant is genius. No one seems to write they way they used to, back in the 1800's.

An excerpt from Solitude, which is one of my favorite of his short stories:

“Do you know of anything more horrifying than this constant close contact with people that we can’t know? We love one another as if we were bound together by chains, we’re close, but we stretch our arms out and we can’t touch. We’re in the grip of a tortuous need of union, but our efforts are sterile, our pleasures useless, our secrets bear no fruit, our grasps impotent, our caresses in vain. When we want to get together, we just hurtle toward another person and then collide.“

I never feel as alone as I do when I bare my soul to some friend, because it’s then that I best understand the unbreakable barrier. There he is, a man; I see that his eyes are looking at me; but his soul, behind those eyes, I don’t have the slightest notion of it. He listens. What is he thinking? Do you understand this torment? Maybe he hates me. Or feels contempt for me, or is laughing at me? He’s thinking about what I say, he judges me, he’s scoffing at me, he condemns me, he decides I’m mediocre, or stupid. What’s he thinking? If I like him, does he like me? Just what’s going on in that little round head? The thoughts of someone else are so mysterious, those hidden thoughts. They’re free; they’re thoughts we can never know, never control, never dominate, never conquer!“

And me, as much as I’d love to give of myself entirely, open all the doors of my being, I can’t. In the deepest part of my soul, there’s a section that no one can ever know. No one can ever discover it, no one can get inside, because no one is like me, because no one understands anyone.

I have an 1892 Printed dated, leather bound book of his 10 volumes of short stories. I think this book is one of the most tangible full sensory experiences I have ever head. It intrigues every sense when I pick up and read these stories.

My thoughts Exactly