Thursday, August 6, 2009

Water, please?

I paused before the refrigerated beverage section at Whole Foods, amazed at the colorful chaos within the neatly stacked choices. The glowing display resembled a giant smiling mouth, proudly exposing shiny rows of teeth. Only the teeth were bottles of teas, waters, smoothies, and other organic elixirs that promise antioxidants, weight loss, energy boosts, relaxation, detoxification, stronger bones, probiotics, Omega 3’s,..and in spite of this heap of choices, mental clarity.

A sinister looking gothy hipster girl stocks the drinks. Through peripheral vision, or perhaps simply a feeling, I perceived a perpetual frown directed toward scrutinizing customers, for whose pleasure she was completing this very task. I also sensed a mild annoyance at my presence, standing beside her and looking baffled. She has seen thousands of people in a day stop and look with a similar expression. They ponder, proceed toward the shelf, pick up an object, and methodically read the labels of each product before placing it into the cart.

It seemed as though many minutes of desperate searching passed before my eyes fell on a bottle of seltzer, my reason for entering the store. I reached for the bottle, too exhausted to extract the relative importance of lemon, lime, plain, orange, or raspberry. Although anxiety had dissipated I nonetheless lingered at the other end of that consumer tight rope, releasing a mental sigh.

‘Watch out,’ I heard the goth girl warn, just before a shopping cart materialized from nowhere and tapped me in the rear. The driver swerved out of the way not angered, simply indifferent and too hurried to acknowledge my apology. I had been abruptly transported from one reality to another, not unlike the sensation of ears blocked with fluid that suddenly pop, and the cacophony of the world becomes a part of perception once again.

Considering the casual nature of the warning and the ease with which the woman dismissed our minor collision I concluded that I was in the wrong. I was driving on the wrong side of the road, head on with opposing traffic.

Upon returning from a lengthy trip abroad I often experience discombobulation amidst my own culture. The most recent trip was taken to Costa Rica. There I spent two months developing a relationship to nature, paralleled by a growing understanding of my self. I returned to urban living a month ago and have since felt like an alien observer, studying commonplace technologies and accepted social behaviors with fascination, perplexity, and occasional dismay.

This environment offers constant stimulus and so many options that threaten to envelope the self that I gradually began to know and trust.

I wonder, will I find the balance between walking these streets with others while remaining conscious of and confident in the individual willing each step?

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