The Epoch slots of being

I sit here in a coffee shop named "Epoch." It is, so far, my favorite coffee house that I have found in my tour of Austin. It is a neat pocket of Hyde Park (a northern neighborhood) that stretches from a funky street filled with vintage clothing stores and ambiguously-named businesses. After being in the mind of my 17 yr old character, Ian, all morning I find I am quite excited to write from my own perspective. It can be quite exhausting keeping up with the elaborate plot of Ian's life.

I start to wonder about this Epoch word, and learn that it is a subdivision of the geological timescale that is dependent on rock layering. We are currently in the Holocene epoch. What most intrigues me is the obsession of man to label increments of time. That we are so dependent on these labellings to quantify change, when innately, change is endless, inevitable, and impossible to swallow.

I wonder, about the layering of rock, and how humans can be labeled in the same fashion. How we are each just layers of experience, that are stacked from our ribs to our softest, most exposed pieces of skin. There are so many things that make up the rock; heartbreak, sadness, loss, joy, hope. When I start to feel that I am crumbling, it is nice to know that I am made up of many levels, and that when a part of me disintegrates, that it only makes way for the next, fresh layer to become exposed. That the pain is part of this grand stripping and the only thing we really fear is the anticipation of the transition. My layer now, is sandy and feels like it sinks into every part of me. But, I know, in the parts of me that are open to truth, that I am made from the holiest parts of earth. Even when it all falls away, erodes and violently cracks until our ears bleed, that there is always more beneath.

Sometimes, the shininess of the redemption can make you cry.

And there are some people, that can dig in you, feel your grittiness in their hands, and love you anyways. They are the excavation team that are trained to find every last uneven part of you, that will flatten you out when you become uneasy mounds of self-deprecation.

Maybe you have to own a shovel, to be my friend. Or, better yet, maybe I am only given people that enjoy geological surveying. They wear those white safety helmets and goggles, and smile with fat grins at the challenge.

I hope, that I am at least that piece of earth that feels like home to others. That when they're tired, no matter which layer I'm on, that they can roll out their sleeping bags and lay upon me. And as they stare up at the sky, and I cradle them and weep, that they see all the complexities of the stars and translate that into something wondrous.

For, I ponder, what is the point of being constructed like this, formed by symmetrical compartments of evolving land, without being able to feel the weight of your lovely little feet?