Transitions

From my desk at the office, I have a view of a mountain range that looks like an area graph, in dark green, mostly a steady horizontal, with one minor peak towards the rightmost end.

On beautiful afternoons, this range would be a picturesque background behind a sea of houses and a few buildings jutting upwards here and there. Looking at the contrast between the structures illuminated by the fast setting sun, and the green, almost black, background evokes warmth and respite.

These afternoons.

Strangely, they make me think of the red slippers I used when going to the farm as a kid. It is a thought to smile about but, it's probably just lack of caffeine most of the time. They also remind me of my black notebook where I would scribble notes from university classes. I liked how it had looked so worn and old, and how I would never have traded it for an iPad. I also remember, "What is essential is invisible to the eye..." It took me a long time to understand why the rose would cough when she was clearly not sick. I thought that was funny.

But I have to bring myself back to reality, where I read an email about rewarding the alcoholics in the office, or the one about a benefit that we have to pay for. On some special days, I have to urge myself to see through a situation that is deserving of judgment less than positive, explaining the basics of culture. And I have learned this by heart: it is difficult to have the best when it is impossible for you to state a logical understanding of it. Then, I wonder, how long should transitions be? 6 years? 

I suspect that somewhere between the rose, my black notebook, the pair of red slippers and the mountain range is an answer.