It’s Time For a Dose of Maximalism

Sunlight streams in through an open window a half hour after dawn. It softens as it glazes over closed eyelids, shrouding us in a dreamlike juncture, the in-between, a passage between fantasy and the world in which we wake. An inhale, we wake, we rise. Fighting off sleep with possibility, we dress to adorn not only our corporal bodies but our minds.

The first layer is honest, a second skin laced with roses and permanent ink. We peel it over our heads, onto our hips, it exhales on its own accord and writhes in our becoming. Mornings are often quiet and the murmurs of our private lives reveal themselves in crumpled bed sheets and the lamps we keep unplugged. Canvases stroked with the colors of a shapeless nostalgia remember the past. They stand guard around the room while we decide what armor, made of cotton, tulle or polyester, will protect and express the workings of our inner worlds that day.

We are characters, many-faced yet alone in our pursuits. Obligated by the quotidian and the clock, we leave home. We spend the day in flux, mirroring the passage of the sun as it dances behind a mass of clouds and shadow. Interaction — the act itself can feel like swimming against the current as passing glances solidify into stares. They see us and wonder who we are, where we are going dressed like that, suited in glamor, armed with materialism that sparkles on its own.

They’re surprised to learn we’re on parallel paths, taking the same train home, sometimes the scenic route, coexisting. What they don’t see is what we have cultivated, an inner world, a way of being here and somewhere else simultaneously. We have let the fantasy seep in, we allow ourselves to be transformed. The roses continue to bloom, their roots bury deep into our skin.