The Feeling of Feeling

     I could have driven home with the windows closed last night.  The sky was lavender and the air was brisk and sharp with the teeth of a December Pacific.  It was windy.  One hand rested on the steering wheel.  The other seemed unable to stay still, instead caught in a cycle of surfing the breeze outside the window and pushing unruly hair back behind my left ear.  My toes had adopted a layer of sand as their own.  I could have let them stay dry.  I could have packed my beach day things and driven away, skipping the barefoot run back to the shoreline, alone, watching the Hawaii clouds blush as they shed their daytime sun.
     At some strange point in my beloved busy-bee city life, I stopped splashing in rain puddles, opting to watch from a window until the weather passed.  Safe and dry. Grumbling with the rest of them about the inconvenience of a cool spring shower.  Worried about my shoes.

     I am not sure that we are aware of losing ourselves as it happens.  I suppose we call it "Growing Up."
    You let go of island loves.  You trade the treehouse for an expensive vintage apartment downtown (It's quirky!  I'll buy a yellow couch! I'm still whimsical!). You start painting your nails all one color and you begin to care what people think of you.  You stop writing.
   
     But mostly, I think, you decide that it is less important to feel.  Or I did.  When I say feel, I mean touch.  Taste.  Smell.  Feel.  With your heart, sure.  But also with everything else. As we leave whimsy behind, we tend to neglect our senses.  We neglect our human need to have some understanding of the piece of Earth we wake up with every morning.

     I could tell you what Denver smells like right before snowfall.  I could point to which stars you should follow to Vail in September, and then in May, and which to follow home.  I could walk you to the most fragrant roses on Ogden Street (they're at 10th, across from The Kensington Apartments).  I could show you the most picturesque block of 16th St at Christmastime, and where to get roasted poblanos, with their desert smoke which fuses with the air the sting your eyes and fill your breath with earth and pepper.  And I know where to find the softest grass at Cheesman Park because ever so occasionally, I would kick off my shoes and remember to be a part of the world around me.  I would remember how important that is.

     When you lose bits of yourself, the collect like charms on a shining bracelet.  They clink together, and you can see them, each one, glinting in the light every time you give them movement.  They tend to be confused for memories and they cant hurt to look at, like the slow ache of old pictures.

  But they live and they wait, hoping to some day catch the light.  Hoping that you will move back to an island.  Hoping that you will play in the rain. Hoping that you will run barefoot through fallen palm fronds and stop to inhale the ribbons of jasmine and stare at the marshmallow sunset.
     Hoping that you will drive under the lavender sky, push wild-wind hair behind your left ear, sing too loudly with Billy Bragg about California stars and welcome back the feeling of feeling.