Wired Mesh

Things Unseen

It hasn't taken me long to settle into a pleasant late night pattern at my new house: I grab a beer from the fridge, hop over the upstairs porch railing and lie out on the roof, nestled in the joints between its peaks. I smoke a few cigarettes, listen to Ryan Adams and Bill Mallonee, and smile up into a soft dark quilt of tree branches intertwined above my head. Last night I got to thinking about that last part, the smiling part: Odd how we have the need to twist our mouths upward even when there's no other human around to smile at. We could just keep our emotions entirely internal, after all, and that we don't suggests something about the human need to communicate, to express ourselves to some other, perhaps to the divine. I think maybe faith is smiling and knowing someone sees it, even when you're alone.