haze

Los Angeles’ head is a bit fuzzy. It affects us all. From the lungs spew the smoke. And the addiction has passed to me, secondhand. I drink the sulfur and breathe the filter. Because it revitalizes me. I question why I do it. Every drag in makes the out that much harder. But it’s the questioning that moves me.

As I watch the sky shade from blue, to orange—the atomic descent—to pink, to purple, and the wonderful in-betweens that linger longer than the primary impression, night falls upon California’s chameleon city. First noticeable is the expanse of midrange building—cookie cutters from Hells Kitchen—that trick the eye into the monotonous maze of Sin’s suburb. This sprawl goes on for as long as the eye can see—correction, for as long as the eye is allowed to see. The margins become lost in the mist. This mist—or fog, smoke, haze—is untouchable, yet a part of us. It has permeated the city’s conscious, instilling the reality of a surface life. Looks to the horizon find a limited perspective, a 10 mile radius at best to asses the depth of this land. We fear what we can’t see. We fear the world outside our bubble. So we restrict depth perception. We view people for whether they model clothes or simply wear them; whether they get from point A to B or arrive in style; if their cash rolls or bounces; if their skin screams appeal, or just the first peel. The surface is a beautiful thing, for awhile. Then we become acclimated. From there, one can settle, or one digs deeper. I see you, shrouded, outlined, and willing to be defined. Your Otherness I shall conquer.

The initial ascent provides the means for uncovering what was always available yet constantly obscured. Hike the nearest mountain—you see the clouded seismograph stretching the margin—and observe the wishing well perspective that suspension grants. Look, the ants at my feet are you. Miles above sea-level these ants mimic your city life, and I really see no difference. What happens in the space between? Is that where the excess lies? Our pollutants crowd the air we cannot occupy, warping what was there with what we wish and wait for. Not east of Eden, or south or north, but above and below. The personal Eden is where we shall dwell. I would feel trapped by these barrenous mountains if I didn’t know how to climb them. But in actuality, it is us who have done the trapping. A civil detonation, pushing Nature’s limits back into nothing. The devolution of the natural evolves the artificial. It’s a yin-yang. Nothing is infinite until you realize it is everything. Back to the ants, which are no smaller than we, as we are dust on this planet, that is a rock in orbit, of which neighbors everything, trapped in nothing.


--Weston Finfer