Silence & Stillness

Lately I've been asked to close the restaurant. Normally I wouldn't do it because I don't believe in working overtime when you don't get paid for it. But this new kitchen manager seems to want to make things work and I've seen the hard work he's been putting in and the hard work of others. I just figure, I can help lessen their headaches, even if for just one night. Well, the one night is now three nights, and my social life has now gone to shit, lol. Not really .. but the weeks do go by alot faster and I do get my alone time that I desperately need.

Anywho, back to the point .... tonight, I closed. But tonight, was slow. So I managed to get out of the restaurant pretty early, still the last one out mind you, but it was early.

To pay homage to it, I ventured to a bar I used to frequent quite often; just to see who worked there and to have some time to myself before I went home. And as I sat there, reading the newest edition of the local gay paper "Gay Calgary", a patron walked up to me and asked if I would, for him, draw what it was I was thinking. I obliged after immediately realising that he didn't fully realise he was disturbing me. And so I drew. I drew pretty quickly, and for the most part absent-mindedly. I just wanted him to go away.

But as I withdrew from the drawing, I noticed I drew a landscape. Over the plains you can seen a mountain range with a clear sky up above; pretty simple drawing obviously with the mere moments it took to conjure it up, but my drawing nevertheless.

And as for what I was thinking ... the man who wanted it simply took it as I'm "a man who loves the outdoors". How much more simplistic can one get in regards to an analysis? Succeedingly I detered him away with a simple nod. Happy that I obliged with his "project", he teetered back to his bar stool and continued with his night. I stared up at the bartender as he read my facial expression and empathized with a shooting to his head with his fingers.

But it did get me thinking .. my drawing. It wasn't until moments ago that I finally realised what I drew. It wasn't my "love of the outdoors" that I was trying to express. No. Instead it was my longing for silence. For there was nothing indicating noise or chaos in my pic. Instead, it was a mere landscape; a pretty peaceful one if you ask me. It was the whole aesthetic nature of the thing that, I felt, was supposed to symbolize peace, my craving for stillness.

Not everyone gets it I'm sure. But it is a longing. A longing for everything to come to a standstill and just stop.