(This is a journal entry I found from early June. It's a little out of date, but I feel like a lot of it still rings true for me.)
The light is playful today. It is dancing in and out of shadow. The people are gathered in groups. They move with the light, laughing. It is a strange, yet oddly fitting, atmosphere to read about the intoxicating mixture of passion and hate that drove the conflict in the Balkans. It is a day unfiltered and ever-changing in a blur of oddly met expectations. The air and the sound of people’s conversations have a hard clarity. I am sitting between sunlight and shade, perched on springs edge, observing the festivities and reading about atrocities of an earlier time that feel unexplainably and unsettlingly close.
I know these observations make no sense. They are meant to help capture the odd quality of the day, but they allude to something far too large, something connectible only in my unique experience of reading in the sun. The ephemeral threads intertwining the world of the 1990’s Balkans and Chetzemoka Park are made all the more surreal by the illusive mysticism of a hypnotic hymn and a decorated cross being used in an outdoor service. This desperate need for connection and individualized community in the midst of a pandemic, could almost, almost be compared to the explosion of nationalistic passion that consumed the Balkans after the colapase of Communism.
It’s strange, as we approach what feels like an edge, it seems like even time has slowed its rapid pace, but not in peace or even fatigue. It has slowed in suspense, anxiously shifting from one foot to another as it waits. The sky is a bright blue, but not a clear blue. The wind brings summer, but not the promise of a comfortable one.
The light is playful today. It is dancing in and out of shadow. The people are gathered in groups. They move with the light, laughing. It is a strange, yet oddly fitting, atmosphere to read about the intoxicating mixture of passion and hate that drove the conflict in the Balkans. It is a day unfiltered and ever-changing in a blur of oddly met expectations. The air and the sound of people’s conversations have a hard clarity. I am sitting between sunlight and shade, perched on springs edge, observing the festivities and reading about atrocities of an earlier time that feel unexplainably and unsettlingly close.
I know these observations make no sense. They are meant to help capture the odd quality of the day, but they allude to something far too large, something connectible only in my unique experience of reading in the sun. The ephemeral threads intertwining the world of the 1990’s Balkans and Chetzemoka Park are made all the more surreal by the illusive mysticism of a hypnotic hymn and a decorated cross being used in an outdoor service. This desperate need for connection and individualized community in the midst of a pandemic, could almost, almost be compared to the explosion of nationalistic passion that consumed the Balkans after the colapase of Communism.
It’s strange, as we approach what feels like an edge, it seems like even time has slowed its rapid pace, but not in peace or even fatigue. It has slowed in suspense, anxiously shifting from one foot to another as it waits. The sky is a bright blue, but not a clear blue. The wind brings summer, but not the promise of a comfortable one.
Comments
Log in or register to post comments.