Transcendence

Every time I step into an elevator, I think of chance. If it's a very short elevator, like the one I have at work that goes between the upstairs and the downstairs, I wonder what I would get away with should it break. A broken ankle, a concussion maybe? This does not stop me from using elevators. I am recklessly willing to climb into them, although today when I thought about going to the Schurz Library, I thought: I will take the stairs. The climb will be good for me, and I won't have that nagging, compulsory imagination. Then I arrived, after work, and climbed into the elevator anyway. The doors whisked closed and I could hear its creakiness--no more or less creaky than usual, or than any other elevator's creakiness. Still, I thought of the four stories below me, and of velocity, and how my feet might rise up in the freefall, and that the sudden electric sensation in the pit of my stomach would take my breath and my voice away. The choice of complaining about my fate would be taken away--whether I wanted to or not, I would plummet and float like a dandelion fluff, silently within the little cabin of the elevator, then crumple onto the floor like a paper cup. But then again, maybe four stories is not enough time to transform into something weightless.

As the elevator came to a stop I was finishing these thoughts, and then it gave that one final dip that tells you you've arrived; but of course, I was not expecting this, and as my stomach fell out from under me, for that briefest instant, I faced the chance head-on.

At the end of this trip was the fifth floor, and on that floor were poems and drawings by Naoko Fujimoto, who I became aware of via the open mic nights. She had placed them in second-hand frames, garage-sale frames (or, so they seemed--perhaps they were family heirlooms, though). The drawings were very colorful with delicate black lines forming the main images. Some of the images went with the poems, which were on plain white paper and pressed between two sheets of glass in a frame. Every frame hung on a long, long thin wire that was hooked around skinny piping that traveled the upper part of the wall. From a distance it looked as though some very strange and sensitive spider had gone around capturing artwork in its web.

I do not say this lightly when I say: Naoko's work is pure brilliance. She will be published someday, it's only a matter of time. Reading and viewing her work tonight, I was moved. When I left (taking the stairs, enjoying each solid step) something was changed in me, a pebble tossed into a pond. By tomorrow morning the water will be still again, but the pebble will remain there, under the surface, changing how light enters and exits me. I did not want to leave, really, but the library was closing.

Now I have to go tend to the dog, who is barking a tantrum in the backyard. C'est la vie.