At the traffic lights…

…and the world takes a break. It feels different at the stops depending on whether you are walking, driving, or being driven.

What are the thoughts that rush into your head? Are you listening to music? A podcast to feel productive, or to feel less lonely? Or are you listening to the streets?

I’m seeking more silence in my day. I turn the music off, leave my phone on the table, ignore social media…

In the quiet you catch up with yourself. In the quiet the crowds subside. They make way for a stranger self. It’s not a guest. The proprietor lays claim to the land.

It took getting half the world away to leave the world behind. Choosing to be always an observer, one asked me if I felt like I belonged here. In four days I get familiar. In four weeks I tire. And for years, I never stay.

As the lights turn red, I face: I wasn’t taught how to think critically. I ingested the poison then the panacea, it was chucked down my throat forcefully. Yet, it is the nomads’ blood in me. In following the tradition, I was lead to roam the steppes.

Next is a colour a friend of mine loved when I couldn’t stand it. I learned to recognise it: in gold and the heat, summer dresses in the wind, grasslands after spring… The friend disappeared, for a year I mourned it. Then, only yesterday, she suddenly reappeared. Yet, here is my goodbye, already pale under exposure to a yellow dye.

And then green. The colour I could live in. Bunyan trees know how to take roots to make a bole out of branches, and out of branches a bole. Who decided peace was white in paint? The peaceful piece together the hint. Here, the road is split. I can go now.