I am of Humanity: a Sketch

From the library I walk to one of the Quiet Places on campus; take off my backpack, and I am free.  I make the short climb upward and watch the world around me, the stars above.  I swing from the poles over my head, and sit atop one for a while.

It is cold.  My ears, cheeks, neck, hurt from it.  The cold air and colder metal cause my hands to ache, and I am glad.  I am glad to feel the sharp throb of my ears and ache of my hands; to feel the pain in my body, to remember it's there.  I have hands.  They hurt, and they are part of my body, and they are mine.

They are not just a tool for serving, not only an extension of my academic mind.  They are part of my physical body, which I feed and sleep and, of late, otherwise ignore.  But it is me, and I am alive.

And with the sensation, the reminder of my physical body, the imagination slowly starts to leak out from beneath the intellect.

I can swing on the metal rods and pretend I am a gymnast, or look up at the stars and imagine myself an astronomer of old, seeking the wisdom of God in the artwork of the stars.

The moon is the tiniest sliver: I try to write but it's too dark, and I cannot see the strokes of my pen.  So I clamber down, reclaim my backpack, rejoin inhabited civilization.

Inside, I feel my cheeks and ears burn.  In the bathroom mirror they are a blotchy red and white.  My hands also burn; they are bright red and ugly, with the veins and fingers starting to swell, un-shriveling in the warmth.  Once I can properly feel it again, my left hand aches from the day's writing.

People talk to me.  The strangeness of my thoughts fades away and I notice that I am hungry, tired.  I recall that I have much yet to do.

My hands have returned to their normal coloring, calluses slightly enlarged from recent use.  I am no longer too warm or cold.

And as the acute consciousness of my humanity fades, I must go back to "real life" and the ordinary thoughts and tasks before me.