Photo in the cloud

Between points.

Between beginnings, between ends.

Between people. Some to the left, some to the right, those ahead, others behind.

Between choices, friends, pets, loves.

Between a past with more defined edges, and a future more indefinite, blurred.

Between arrivals, departures.

Traveling. The travelings within. Within tubes that go above water, above land, above clusters called cities and below and through shapeless changing forms, called clouds. This going, the getting there, the wait. That sit.

There we observe the travelers around us, or the things outside our windows, called clouds. There we see from up above those things called cities, rivers, mountains, seas. There we may also pass over some or all of this in the same way we pass through ordinary days: looking less, listening less, but filling our eyes and ears with other light, other sound. With videos or music. Because just to sit, just to listen, to watch, to travel within, can be uneasy. That thinking, the sitting with one’s self. Uneasy. Better to pass that over, then, to fill it in, like an empty cup. But then time goes also, and we wonder where it went.

There is a certain amount of time, and a certain number of trips in a lifetime. A number of flights, train rides, tickets taken.

How was it, comes the question on the other side. How was the trip.

Sometimes we find something to complain about. The delay or the person next to us, in front or behind. Even though we’re there, we’ve made it, even though still have a chance then to go on, go again.

Along the way, along our journeys, we take pictures. We look for moments, moments and sights worthy of holding onto, of sharing, so we go to grab them, take them with us. When such a moment comes we fumble, fumble with our hands, the focus, the angle, try to capture it just so because soon it may go, may move, will be a memory, be gone.

Does the trick ever really work? If we were so busy fumbling, trying to grab, was it ever really ours, were we really there, holding it ever? Would the moment, the image hold better if we’d have never moved, never fumbled, just been.

To be. Or to have been.

Subtle difference, shapeless cloud.

We say: let’s be.

We say: let’s not waste any more of it. This. The time we have. The trips we take. These moments. Our breaths.

But we will. We’ll waste plenty. We’ll fumble around too often, and sooner or later we’ll fumble away ourselves. We’ll go, and be gone. We’ll be the memory, a moment, a photo. We’ll be in someone’s frame or frame of mind, a shapeless cloud, something to someone maybe, and then that will go, go with them, will turn to rain.

Maybe some of the photos do last. Maybe up up, also in some cloud. In some thing that may or may not really be there, exist.

Between wingtips, between clouds.

We travel, we are, we were.