Narrowing the View of Choice, subtly.

In my last blog, I noted that I was afraid of commitment, and that to counteract my fear, I had committed. At least to a place. To Grandview Avenue. To the road that cuts along the top of the mountain overlooking the whole city of Pittsburgh. In the last blog entry, I pondered what it might mean to have to choose even after having already made a choice. Because let's be honest - a mountain top view of a city, three rivers, more bridges than Venice, a sky the same proportion as the land, and my own mind trying to write about it - explodes the meaning of focus.

Sometimes, when I think of making a choice, I get anxious because there are so many options from which to choose - and only one life in which to choose them. Like the bridges that arch their backs over the brackish colored rivers, I know that there are often numerous ways to reach one bustling place - that place we are sure we're meant to be - the place we think we can see, even when we're far from it. But sometimes, making a choice isn't really about deciding something at all. It's about letting go and noticing that what you need is obvious - and so overwhelmingly clear. Sometimes you want to call it a choice, just so you don't have to know it's a need.

Today I need to talk about color. But first, I'll talk about the walk it took to get there.

Like last week, I feel the compulsion to walk. While I like the feel of walking - the way it clears my head and brings me back to the present moment - today I admit I'm not doing it for the right reasons - at least not reasons that feel right. I'm doing it to multi-task. This week is bulging with things I need to do, down to the hour, the minute, the bone. So today, this walk is nature-writing is exercising is meditation is school work. And unfortunately, meditation is not conducive to multi-tasking. Apparently neither is nature-writing, or exercising, or even, much to my chagrin, school work. The cause of my realization? That my socks are slipping from my ankles and down to my heels. Again. Like last week. Even though I am wearing proper foot attire. For a moment, I consider going the short distance back, to sit on a bench and allow myself the luxury of being still enough to just watch.

But of course, that's not what I decide. I need to exercise, see things in passing, move. And so every step up the steep hill pulls my socks down under my feet until I have to stop, reach a cold finger into my shoe and pull them back up, like they are baggy pants without a belt. After the third time, I curse under my breath. I can't write in my head like this. I can't even get into a pace that feels rhythmic, calming, good. And I need this. Desperately. I need to clear my head. I need to pay attention. And not just because I have a blog due, but because I think this will help me relax.

But it doesn't. Because my sock has again slipped down under my heel. Now to my arch, so that I might be walking on a slender rolling pin. The cold bites the tender skin of my exposed ankle and now I'm pissed.

I stop. Slam my foot up on a concrete curb. Yank at my sock so hard I hear cloth tear. The sound is so sweet, so cathartic, I pull harder on the sock until I feel the cloth give way completely. Now it hangs like a baggy sweatshirt from my shoe and a smile of retribution spreads across my face. Because I know I've ripped an entire hole in the heel of my sock. Then I hear heavy breathing from behind and know that a runner is coming up the hill. Suddenly, I'm embarrassed at how silly I've been. I just ripped a hole in my own sock - and I'm sure they've seen me do it. So I remain hovering over my shoe, as if looking for something I've dropped.

It's only then, peering to where my foot is propped, that I notice this concrete made of tiny balls of stone - it is the color of broken seashells, and ocean water, and storm clouds. And I'm not that interested in the blandness of these colors until I look up, notice the runner is gone, know that my breathing has slowed, realize: The whole city is the color of these little stones.

At first, this realization - it does not excite me. Because while it is surely sepia-toned - and if it wasn't so cold and I wasn't so desperate for sunshine, I might color this image nostalgic - I don't find the industrial colors of steel blue, silver matter and lead gray very romantic. Regardless, something about the view draws me forward, out onto the circular overlook covered in ice and snow, to hold onto the black railing and look out over the city. I let my gaze scan the visage, hoping it will snag on some bright color like red, or yellow, or orange; like a kite might catch on the edge of a branch because the wind has forced it to stop. I lean forward for a glimmer of color like I am looking for hope.

But there is nothing. A little red flashing light - a warning for airplanes or helicopters, maybe. Hardly the ruby I was hoping for. Then below, in my periphery, I notice the slow and steady movement of a barge on the river. It's a rusty barge, red as clay and pushes three huge containers of coal piled high. I watch it crawl over the water, so slow that I have time to wonder about the men whose job it is to steer it, what colors they have to see, when I notice a subtle cloud of brown emerging from the white water that ripples out terse from behind the barge. It's this muddy line of sediment, the color of porcini dust, that allows me to see that the river is not brown, but really - it's green. Like dried oregano or basil.

My eyes flicker from the opaque river to the sky and then back. It's when words of color start to breeze through my mind. Terracotta banks, a soot black treeline, buildings the color of cumin, and dirty sheets, and tortoise shells, and white wine. When I glance up at the sky, it holds the vaguest of peach and pink. It may only be the contrast of all the cool blue hues that I've noticed, or it may be that there is snow in the air, but the color is there. I can see it now. I can see that it's been all around me and I've been too busy to stop and understand it. I wanted to walk my way through my day, through my assignment. I wanted to move through relaxation, to finish it so that I could move on.

But then the sock slipped, and the barge moved, and the colors began to separate. And what I had to write about wasn't a choice, but a revelation. And the subtle nature of what it means to see what you need.