punch drunk

i opened the window in my office to let the trapped air out and, magnificently, a man from the city began mowing the field across the way. the prickly smell of fresh-cut-grass, the brown sun-stroked smell of meadow grass, half dandelion half weed, not really grass. the hum of my computer in here, the sound of kids playing out there, the chasm that divides me from them. and in the back of my mind i'm wondering when the disconnect happened.

i mean, we're all philotically twined, right? like a meta-physical game of six degrees to kevin bacon. i know you because i know me, effortless, laughable.

out in the big room the college student interns are bickering over using the phone, or rather, who doesn't have to use the phone. they seem so distantly young, remote. i used to be that young, but i was always this age, so what's the difference, what divides us?

the smell of green floats in again and my mind floods with memories of a midwest childhood. and all of a sudden the difference is tangible, palpable, fragrant like fields of shorn wildgrowth.