Shoegazing. The first time I heard of it, I understood it immediately. Some may be hard-pressed to find the attraction in the stillness of the spotlight, but any modern romantic envisions with ease the dust on the tops of well-worn Converse, scraped from the warped wooden floors of the old warehouse/depot/theater/other artifact of urban decay turned venue. Such mighty inwardness may produce confidence in the "performer," but true faith, as such a focused person must know, comes from truly knowing thyself. From these fragmented origins spring the music, the serene meditation of one lifting higher the soul of the watchers. He does not know that he has watchers. All is as it should be.
Stargazing. It's been many a year since my earnest forays into the night, trying to capture the clean green-dusk scent that also unaccountably exists in the ugly, fragrant shelves of the public library. Who of those that take the time to look does not appreciate the night sky? It is an open mysticism, inviting, to some calling, with less of the hypnotic tricks like incense and smoky air but more compelling draughts of equal parts mystery and light. Light, for our nature; only the sort of dark mystery that alludes to more of the nature of ourselves, more essence. Future. But to open myself to the sky is to become sensitive, seemingly undesirable to the warm, smoky fragrance of an always inward and reflecting (stagnating) heart, which is why recollection caught me unprepared when she referred to the relation of my posture to the drably speckled slabs of ceiling as perfect stargazing. With the recollection of such charged memories, I was more surprised when she leaned awkwardly back against my knees and called it
Stargazing.