Double Time
Hearing double time inside of a slow song will always remind me of you
.funk.du.hoy.
Um
After enjoying a sunny March day in Atlanta, I sit in my hotel lobby. Tomorrow I will work, but for now, I can sit and slow down so my soul can catch up to me. I look through the towering windows and watch the wind comb through the delicate tree branches growing from the gardens. As the air cools outside, the fire begins to crackle and flicker soft light onto the strangers around me. I sit in plush, sleek furniture that is strategically arranged to accommodate anything from a friendly conversation to an intimate rendezvous.
My lips are still warm and tight from the day’s sun as a well dressed man approaches me. He smells of clean cologne but his face still holds two days worth of hair. “Enchané.” Immediately I respond by saying “Hola.” Wrong language. He smiles. “I just flew in from Paris, and I, I am meeting a friend for a drink, do you know where we can go?” With every pause the intonation of his voice rises so everything sounds like a question. “Lo siento.” Wrong again. “I’m sorry, I just arrived as well. I know nothing around this area.” I am guarded but we exchange polite conversation for a few minutes and then, “Merci. My name is Henry. I hope to see you around.” I shake his hand knowing I’ll never see him again “Mi nombre es Amanda. Sí, eso espero.” f-it.
As he disappears around the corner the image of another man appears in my mind. A few hours earlier, a man on Alabama Street holding a twenty-dollar bill in his hand hastily waved it at me. As I got closer he unsteadily yelled “Hey baby, just tell me your name!” He staggered. ” Just tell me your name baby.” As I passed by him he firmly pressed the bill against my arm and I felt his eyes on me. In a softer tone me said “Please just tell me your name.” I shrugged away, looked down, and keep walking. His friends, who were leaning against started to chuckle and he shrieked in disapproval as I disappear around the corner.
I am sure each of these men will find the rendezvous they are looking for. Maybe the man in the street will find it with a neighbor or with a woman in much taller boots. Maybe the man in the lobby will find it with one of the 20 women whom just sat down next to me about to commence a bachelorette party. Either way, I cannot satisfy either of them. I judge and shrug away from all men because I cannot accept or acknowledge their sincerity until…well until I have disappeared several, several times.
At times I think I am a perpetual cynic.
But judging from experience, I think I am a realist.
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
.Galway Kinnell.
*on my way to work. sunrise as steam rises from the river. this picture gives it no justice
Here comes the sun
Growing up, autumn was marked not by the change in weather but by the change in store decorations. Shops would bring out arbitrary bushels of hay and garlands with leaves in the colors of sun-rays creating a scene that we, in central Arizona, would have only seen in movies and TV shows. These decorations in store fronts and mall food courts make Arizonians remember that our weather is not so typical. Apparently, people don’t normally have barbecues in mid November, nor do they have fall wardrobes comprised of summer clothes with a cardigan and scarf thrown in for fun. Clearly my idea of fall weather has been a bit skewed from the start. This was never more apparent than when I came back to Portland. I got thrown directly back into the reality of seasonal change. The days were cool and gray, the sun slept earlier every night, and traveling through morning fog had become routine. Classic fall weather from what I’ve seen in movies but somehow it hadn’t felt like fall had really hit.
And then today happened.
Today was sunny. While walking to work, I zigzagged from one sun pocket to the next trying to absorb the morning light. After watching the sun shadow move through the office all morning, it was finally time for lunch. I grabbed my bag and walked outside and took a deep breath. The crisp air kissed my lips and the sun warmed my skin. I looked around and as if by magic, the leaves had changed colors mimicking the vibrant shades of sun-rays. I walked around for an hour without my jacket, which I haven’t been able to do in weeks.
This is the fall I know.
This is the fall that I remember and it had spotted up in Portland.
Bring on the clouds and cold, I’m ready for fall now.
.you can’t be wise and in love at the same time.
please dont forget
Everything about who we are, is stored away in our minds, linked together by tightropes. Through the labyrinth of our minds, we are able to fly from link to link to access the things that make us, us. As we get older these links begin to fray and we start to forget the smaller details of life; the feeling of the first day of school, our aunt’s birthday, or the faces of our childhood friends. These links continue to unravel until they snap leaving two lifeless edges that can no longer be mended. Memories are lost without direction of how to find the life and recognition they were once powered by. Lost in the chasm of our minds these memories disappear. As if they never existed. This is what Bill Collins so beautifully describes in ‘Forgetfulness’.
“The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title.” The small things go first. The details that filled up space between the larger ones start to fade. Mostly unnecessary facts and names we’ve picked up along the way but these small things allow us to better associate one detail with another. They are what have kept the links firing. They are what have kept us sharp. Our speech begins to mimic the new spaces in our minds. Broken and paused. Searching.
Then, slowly, the links between the details that have made us who we are begin to stretch. Our teachings, our logic, and our inspirations that have molded us begin to diminish. All of the facts we obtained and studied so arduously in school pack their bags. All of the rights and wrongs we have learned skip away. And saddest of all, all of the colors and the smells, the textures and lights, the loves and pains, everything that has provided us with inspiration frolics away leaving us, bland. Leaving our eyes merely two spheres for sight, leaving our hands merely two tools for function. Leaving our heart merely beating.
Sadly, even if we want to regain these qualities back, there comes a point when our minds wont allow this. “And even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away.” The notion that once links are broken, more cannot be made. The reality that the usable parts of our minds become smaller and smaller and any new information ships the existing information off “to a little fishing village where there are no phones”. Simply put, once our minds begin to leave us, its impossible to regain what we’ve lost. It’s impossible to regain whom we were.
We are left to float in the river of lost memories just hoping to drift past something recognizable. Hoping to find the few unbroken links that still contain memories of the first time we felt love, or the smell of snow, or the kind eyes of the women whom gave us life. “No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.”
Along the way we are joined by other beings as lost as we are. Neither party able to help the other. Occasionally we will drift past those whom scavenge the bottom of the waters aching to hold their ground. Aching to fight the current. Eventually they too will tire and let the current guide them.
Hollow shells, we take in what we can. Struggling to remember our life, as we knew it.
bonbon
How do I explain this…it’s the second day of fall and Portland is finally experiencing days that resemble summer. The warmth of the sun is slowly fading as the clouds roll in and the sun rolls over the horizon. We lay down our blanket and share space with 5000 strangers. We are all gathered for one purpose; to see a few good men do what they do best. As small, sporadic drops of water begin to fall from the sky, the lights on the stage dim and I stand up straight to get my first glimpse of the men whom have created music that can fill me with joy, drown me in sorrow, and wade me to sleep. Immediately I am taken back. Nine of the most unkempt, undone, and tousled men walk across the stage and pick up instruments. But then.one.single.falsetto.voice.sings. and thousands of people cheer. The eight other men slowly build the song and the crowd glows with smiles. Each sound is living and crisp. We can hear every finger on each guitar, every tap on the cymbal, and every stroke of a metal stick along bristles of a brush. Each sounds ripples to fill empty air with musical art. After a several songs, eight men leave the stage leaving just one man and his guitar. Simple words coupled with simple cords bring 5000 people to an eerie silence. The small pauses in the song almost become notes of an unseen instrument. The instrument of awe. And as I am standing there, taking this all in, I feel, euphoric. Its similar to a really good kiss. One that makes my body warm and roused. One that makes me excited but calm. One that makes me forget where I am. Eyes closed I can feel the music move in and around me and in return these waves of joy flow from my being and begin dancing with the music. This continues for what seems like an instant but in actuality is closer two hours. At the end, all nine men stand in a line and we thank them letting us experience their gift. Their gift of… how do I explain this.
