Parallels to Tony

There is some sort of restlessness upon me. The sort of restlessness I get when I see a commercial airliner high overhead, traveling seemingly-straight-up in grand slow-motion, chased by clingy contrails, acting as veritable Hansel and Gretel cookie-crumbs of the sky. The sort of restlessness I feel accompanies by either complete complete unfamiliarity or totally lethargic complacency. I have no idea whether it is because I'm sitting outside a Portland coffee shop in the sun of an eighty-five degree mid-September afternoon, a total fantasy to my Alaska-bred sensibilities. It could be that I'm suffering in the slight blue haze of the cigarette behind me, whose master is not so much enjoying it as he is needing it. Cigarette smoke often gives me strange sensations: possibly mild discomfort, possibly pure curiosity about smoking's origins. Perhaps my restlessness is simply internal, a constant pillow-fight in my head as I continue gently beating myself, in the hopes of figuring out who I am. A soft but constant presence in an already crowded cranium. Perhaps it's due to the discovery that not only am I a creature of habit and in desperate need of structure, but that there is nothing inherently weak or wrong about either of those things. Maybe I'm restless because I want things I'm not ready for, or maybe it's due to a constant and ever-changing search for meaning. Maybe I'm restless because where I live doesn't feel like home, but neither does my old home. Some sort of quasi-permanent vagabondage. Maybe I'm too concerned with other people's agendas, and not enough with myself. Maybe it's because this life of second-guesstimation has finally caught up with me and fried my nerves. Again. Maybe it's my constant comparisons between who I was and who I am now. Maybe I live in the past and the future, but never in the present.

Or maybe I've just had too much coffee.

But the fact remains that I'm restless. And, surprisingly enough, I'm a little excited about it. Restlessness is an agent of change, an indicator of energy, even if it's potential energy and not kinetic. Something big is on the horizon. Any day now. Any day.

Or as Stephen Sondheim put it in West Side Story...

Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!

Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!

Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!

With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,
Open the latch!
Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!

Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!

Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And something great is coming!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe tonight . . .