I love when I come across something I've never before seen on a path I travel at least once almost daily. It's rarely something physically new. It's been there for as long as I've travelled the path, but has never made it clearly to my consciousness until that moment during a brief moment of clarity and deeper understanding when I see it.

Leslies Pool Supplies is apparently a chain of stores that sell swimming pool supplies. Recently, I was with Brian and LeighAnn when LeighAnn remarked on a Leslies Pool Supplies store that was opening over in the shopping centre by Coffee Bean on Arneil Rd. as we passed by. Since then, I've been seeing these stores left and right all over the place. Up until that night with Brian and Leighann, I had never ever heard of the store, and had no idea of its existence. Today I saw a sign for a store off of the 118 in Simi Valley. Today I saw a Leslies Pool Supplies store in Lancaster off of the 14. I've seen other stores in other locations ever since seeing the one opening on Arneil Rd. If only my eyes had been opened to something more insightful than a pool supplies store.

My mind bombarded my consciousness with various images and replays from both days Saturday and Sunday skiing at Mammoth when I went to bed those nights. It's interesting to observe how the mind will replay a days events when the experiences were eventful and exciting. The winding down of the mind before going to bed after an adrenalin filled day has always been rather an intense experience for me. Random imagery from the day is thrown into my consciousness as I lay. Things replay, replay, and replay again in a chaotic jumble that is only understandable and interpretable because the imagery comes from my own experiences from that day. I suppose it's a way for my mind to process the excitement from the day. Perhaps a way to sort all the experiences. Perhaps a way for the mind to relax from all the adrenalin that had been pumped through it that day.

(You must login to gain access to this content.) I lay there fully wide awake, but physically thoroughly exhausted, sore all over. Like a cloud of atoms and subatomic particles colliding together, thoughts, imagery and sounds bounce around my consciousness, my mind trying to make sense of them linearly one at a time. My mind tries to organize all my thoughts into a stack of paper, trying to bring each thoughtpage into my consciousness' foreground individually to stamp them off one by one-But a window is left open nearby and a gust of wind blows in sending the pages flying, fluttering all around in a whirlwind. Discernible chaos.. and so I wonder..

I wonder, what if my eyes had been opened to something more insightful than a pool supplies store? From my experience, once the eyes (and mind) have been opened to something, that something will keep reappearing from that moment on until it disappears among all the other things that have been opened up to the mind (and the eyes.) Like stumbling upon a new word, a new vocabulary word. You've never seen that word, but once you have, it keeps showing up in everything you read. Each night that word floats around in your mind, your consciousness as you fall asleep..

Leslies pool supplies, Leslies pool supplies, Leslies pool supplies.. Each night falling further and further back into obscurity, but a familiar obscurity. Obscured by great quantity, rather than by a lack of familiarity. The Leslies pool supplies thoughtpage gets a stamp and off it goes.. I now know of this chain of stores but soon they wont stand out like a sore thumb, they wont glow with an unavoidable aura about them as I pass by. Like all before and all to come, sent off into a familiar obscurity, supplanted by the next eye-opener.