Unexpected contact

I just had the most…unexpected conversation. I went out for a smoke and my neighbor came out at the same time and started talking to me…I think he might not be right in the head or something…either that or he’s high but I it’s all the same to me in any event. He looked at me and asked me what it was that I’m avoiding. Not just that but he also said he could see that I’ve hit a wall and that I need to do what I want to do. All this without any information about me – we’ve never met before. To my memory I’ve never really seen him before or he me but again, that’s not really relevant. What he told me wasn’t anything I haven’t told myself a million times before but, somehow, hearing it from some one else actually had the effect of making me come back in and sit down at my computer to do some writing. I don’t know whether he was just feeding me a line of shit for his own amusement or what but it was an interesting conversation. We talked a bit about truth – he believes in it, I don’t. He believes truth exists in what we feel and what we think. I believe truth exists, I just don’t believe we have access to it. Everything comes to us altered at least by our own perception of it if not already by its very presentation so the truth is not something we’ll ever really see, can see. We didn’t really get into it. He’d already moved on to the tree in the lot next door. My thought is that I suspect that tree has seen more life in its years than I’m likely to see in all of mine. I’m still not clear what he thinks of the tree or why it’s caught his attention tonight. What a wonder such things are – wouldn’t it be marvelous to be able to see what they’ve seen – to know what their thoughts might be? What could the perspective of a being so much longer-lived than us, have to teach? I’m guessing but I think it could be mind-altering whatever the trees have to say. It’s like my old habit of listening to the wind in the trees, waiting for the words to begin to make sense, pressing my hands against their bark, hoping for insight. But, truthfully, the tree didn’t really make any more of an impression on me tonight that it ever has. It’s bare of leaves and lined with snow – stark and black in the night beneath its snowy togs, even with the kindness of the moon’s light, it’s barely beautiful in its present state. It’s freezing outside tonight and I stayed out long enough to smoke 2 cigarettes and shiver some more besides…strange day. Anyway, the point is to say, what he said was that if I’m a writer, I need to write…if I can’t think of what to write, I have to write what’s in my head – what I think, what I see, what I feel and don’t worry about it beyond that-all advice I’ve been offered and told myself many time before. He also seems to think quitting my job means something really big – and it does, but he doesn’t have any information about how true that is except the commonly accepted wisdom that quitting one’s job is a pretty major step to take regardless the circumstance. I found him interesting in a scattered sort of way. The moon is out tonight and it’s so bright I can see it reflected on the snow despite the streetlights – that light that is clear and blue and washes out all the colors that distract in the sun’s light. I love nights like this – where everything seems possible and nothing feels obscured by anything. The air is so clear and so cold; the stars stand out in a sky well polluted by the city lights. The moonlight makes me feel like anything could happen, anything at all. I could be pulled into another dimension or I could actually sit down and write for the first time in days or my cats could start speaking to me...I’ll be impressed enough with the writing. It’s been a not great week but today…well, tonight, is an unqualified good so far.