I reached another milestone! Two full minutes of gazing. I keep thinking that every time we reach another minute it’s going to be an “event gaze”, like if gazing was a TV show then each of the minute marks would be a season finale or the episode when Heather Locklear joins the cast, or something. But it turns out that in both cases so far just the opposite is true. The one minute mark was obscured by clouds and thwarted, so the next day when I gazed for a minute and ten seconds I didn’t even recognize how far we’d come. Then today for minute two the clouds were up to their old tricks. The clouds and I gathered civilly, to watch the sun come up, and I thought there was plenty of room for everyone in this gigantic auditorium we call planet earth. But the selfish clouds wanted a better view and so even though they already had the front row they decided to stand up wearing huge hats and I just couldn’t see a thing. I would have thrown my popcorn on them if I’d had popcorn and could throw 40,000 miles. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t, so I just shook my head in frustration and moped back to the car. I couldn’t believe it. Again clouds had to conspire and on the day of two full minutes ta boot.
But I had a plan! I was going to come back up here and watch the sunset. I would gaze for two minutes today, and I wasn’t going to let some puffs of evaporated water and pollution stop me! As evening rolled in I was fatigued and didn’t feel like making my trek up to the idyllic vista at the mountain crest. So I just moseyed out to my front yard and kicked off my shoes as cars whizzed by and passersby stared at the barefoot weirdo looking directly into the sun and crying. Two minutes felt easy, intoxicating, and it was over before I was ready for it to be over. But there was no hoopla, no mountain view, no ocean breeze, nobody else around. Just me and my milestone.
SIDE EFFECTS: If you stay in your neighborhood to gaze, everyone will find out you are a nut job.
BENEFITS: If everyone finds out who you are, you can finally just be who you are.
