It's Both, and Neither

We swam at dusk, when the bats were just waking and the pool light only muddied the water.

"Is it Tomorrow?" Orion asked.

"It's Twilight, " I told him. "It's sort of an interesting time, because it's not night and it's not day."

I looked past him at the giant balls floating on the water. Their colors are faded in this light. They tell me I can be poppet-sized. They want me to be.

I have an idea for a story.

Just Be. I say in my head. Just Be. Sometimes easier said than done.

It's the runaway train of connections, composition, dialog, layers. I've written before that I'm never blocked creatively. There is that. But the price is the lack of just being. That doesn't come easily. And, of course, I wish it did. So, I struggle. Drugs don't help. Breathing exercises exasperate.

Swimming helps. Like a tinfoil hat against the aliens. Underwater is for just being. And snow, and surf, clear starry skies and methods of mental discipline still under development.

We submerge together and play-fight with plastic swords. It's not half as easy as it sounds, but looks twice as cool as you'd imagine.

I asked Orion why he wants to do this. He says because it's sword fighting and it's underwater.

"Is it Tomorrow?" he asks again. (He wants to hear again about Twilight.)

I tell him that it's Twilight.

It's not night. It's not day. But it is night and it is day. It's both, and neither.

I can see him mulling it over.

"Time for cannonballs!" he says. I agreed.