Places I might never go...

I don't think I'll ever see the great wall of China--and though less rich, I doubt my life will be any less complete for it. But I will miss not hearing the voices, seeing the eyes, touching the people who live there daily, cleaning, watering the plants, selling trinkets and just being local. Likewise, I think, I could do without the famous French intolerance for Americans, though I could easily pass for a foreigner--I do here all my life. But I would like a little coffee and a small, sweet pastry as I walk beneath, behind, around the tower or the museum.

They walk through the day, half-incorporeal, like the ghosts that night forgot behind; their eyes are blank, blind to anything but the spot they've convinced themselves is their destination even though their feet move with no greater urgency, energy or deliberation than their eyes might show.

Many a moon ago, I stood by the Dor0thy Chandler Pavillion looking at a playbill showing Raul Julia as Don Quixote, in Man of La Mancha. I remember being poor and adding in my head the money I had and subtracting all the obligations I still had to meet--and wondering why the latter were so much more than the former. Counting my pennies, I walked away. I missed the play. Within a year or so, he was dead, never again to sing of sacred basins and ghostly loves of things that might have been...

I want to stand on the sand at sunset--the sun won't rise over the Pacific--even if I can't hear the choir of angels. I wonder if the angels sing on the wuthering heights--though I would never hear them there.

Yesterday, I learned I can go home again. Understandably, this terrified me. I will have to think on this a while before doing anything about it.

In the meantime, I hope you all are well wherever you are, that you had a happy hannukah, and have a merry christmas, and that when the year ends it brings a bigger, better, more successful one, full of happiness and health, of good fortune and clear sailing days.

Be good.

Be well.

Mountains o' things

The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a life of ease
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
To have a big expensive car
Drag my furs on the ground
And have a maid that I can tell
To bring me anything
Everyone will look at me with envy and with greed
I'll revel in their attention
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
Sweet lazy life
Champagne and caviar
I hope you'll come and find me
Cause you know who we are
Those who deserve the best in life
And know what money's worth
And those whose sole misfortune
Was having mountains o' nothing at birth
Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings
Consume more than you need
This is the dream
Make you pauper
Or make you queen
I won't die lonely
I'll have it all prearranged
A grave that's deep and wide enough
For me and all my mountains o' things
Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings
Mostly I feel lonely
Good good people are
Good people are only
My stepping stones
It's gonna take all my mountains o' things
To surround me
Keep all my enemies away
Keep my sadness and loneliness at bay
The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a life of ease
And mountains Oh mountains o' things
I'll be dreaming, dreaming... Dreaming...

tracy chapman

A mitad del camino de la vida...

Thus began Dante one of the best books I've ever read.

Something happens when we get to that cloudy area called the middle.

As my birthday approaches, I realize I'm nearly there.

And as so many before me, I reached a crisis.

So I got a toy. How typical.

This isn't the actual one, but mine looks just the same.

I didn't want to be anybody's aunt.

Volver

Has it really been since August?

I didn't realize I was this busy, but I must be, to have so heartlessly forgotten to come by and say hello. Perhaps I've finally run out of stories. Perhaps--at last--I'm speechless.

Or maybe it's all true: I am driven only by whim and lust and all the excitement's gone. Left to my own devices, am I taciturn, somnolent, and trite?

Where hath that spark now gone that once lighted my way to fresher, wilder grounds? Where is the crisp, cool smell of morning? The night has taken hold of my heart and even against the dark sky, darker clouds obscure what little light the stars might give. And already having leaned toward darker tastes, the shroud of anonimity brought by moonless autumn nights lets me walk down desolate streets in the valley, smoking and humming tonelessly tunes only I any longer recognize of all those whom I have known who still live. The dead! They took my songs.

Or maybe it is this well down which I went looking for wishes--only to find slimy toads.

These are the days we go through--when we really feel the "human condition" for which only humans would feel sorrow. Most other creatures seem just happy to be alive. And much like clouds and rainbows, these days pass--into nights that lead to newer days.

And all our days have lighted fools...

I should be a fool! Happy, friendly, outgoing, dancing till my legs can't hold me. I should chat it up with perfect strangers on the bus I now never take because it is beneath me. What putrid drivel! Were I but man enough to know I cannot be an island entirely to myself, I would be far wiser and less strong--and I would make a fool of myself everyday for a bit. No need to cry all the tears of the day in two minutes on your bed--they happily come as they are needed. No need for stiff upper lips that feel so frigid, lifeless and unloving when other lips should come looking for a kiss. Ne'er would I be afraid to hold another hand outstretched to grasp mine own only to keep mine clean.

No.

I should be like a child, who sees with true enthusiasm as genuinely new every moment that his eyes can manage to stave off that fiend: sleep--and not hiding in the cave I call a skull in the darkness of my dreams. I should run barefoot on hot sand, suffering the pain only because I can almost already feel the cool, salty water as it jumps and crashes and dances and flies just on the other side. I should be free of me! A stranger in a strange land seeking just to steal a quick, furtive smile from a shy lad or lass as I whistle past, my smile the beacon that shall guide their own unto the world.

I should be green like the grass; white like the puffy cottonballs the wind shapes into all kinds of things like I used to do to my father's shaving cream; blue, blue! I should be blue like the air all in between... strong, and gentle; cool, and intimate; and there, always there, never gone.

THAT, I should be: permanent. I should be constant.

Or I may simply be a single drop of rain.

Libre

With all the socio-political implications this might have in this day and age, here's a song from my dad's time... a long, long time ago:

Tiene casi veinte años y ya está cansado de soñar,
pero tras la frontera está su hogar, su mundo, su ciudad.
Piensa que la alambrada sólo es un trozo de metal,
algo que nunca puede detener sus ansias de volar.
Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Con su amor por bandera se marchó cantando una canción,
marchaba tan feliz que no escuchó la voz que le llamó,
y tendido en el suelo se quedó sonriendo y sin hablar,
sobre su pecho flores carmesí, brotaban sin cesar...
Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Libre, como el sol cuando amanece, yo soy libre como el mar...
Libre, como el ave que escapó de su prisión y puede, al fin, volar...
Libre, como el viento que recoge mi lamento y mi pesar,
camino sin cesar detrás de la verdad y sabré lo que es,
al fin, la libertad.

Nino Bravo

Unchained, a melody

so we got our hot dogs on the way in and walked around the lumber section, chatting randomly about the stuff on the shelves, the poor lighting in the store, the hot (or not-so-hot) employees, and all that we had missed in a few months of chatting--having been so busy we hadn't had a chance to catch up; I took it like a much-needed confession, sans the "bless me father" and the guilt.

i talked about carlos, who's name isn't carlos, my jewish boyfriend who got me eating kosher, and who is now my dearest friend, but not my boyfriend, and whose company i dearly miss even in these hot and humid summer nights. i told the story of how i broke his television accidentally and how we fixed his couch and how i still have a toothbrush by his sink--one i never get to use. i talked about ricardo, who's now moved somewhere in the middle of the country, who called just a couple of months ago and confessed his undying love to me as he told me of his friend's indiscretions and showed me again why it is we're not together--all with just a word. i talked about andrew and his boyfriend, and the crazy drinks they make, and how they sit in front of a blank t.v. watching xm-on-directv, which is odd because they have no video and so you just sit there watching a blank t.v., and how much fun that can be because you get to talking and before you know it you're deep in conversation and i hope george bush's ears are ringing mightily because there are very few conservative gay men in silverlake, and none of them watch xm-on-directv--at least not with me.

i talked of jose, who promises to be another ricardo, full of love and friendship, with no papers, no car, a lowly job and little promise of staying in the country longer than this blog has lived, and how i cannot get myself to hold him accountable for all the pain others have caused, so here i go headlong into a love i know better than to feel, thinking i'm crazy for loving just the feeling of falling in love and being willing to suffer the pain of having to get over it afterwards bacause in the end how can you have mountains without valleys, canyons and all the other great geological irregularities that make a map that much more fun?

i talked of work, and how busy we are, and how i love working there not because the work is any easier, but rather because everybody is so much fun to work with, and how we're making so much money we're bound to have a great christmas season... and that, of course brought me to the possibility of getting a new car and how i test drove the 350z convertible and just how fast the darned thing is. but i think i am too old and too big for such a little car, so i'm looking at the c70, though it might look like someone's aunt's car. what the hell, i'll be the aunt. and the hell do they put in those hotdogs? they're so tasty! but wait! don't tell me, "everything else"... whatever parts of the cow have no name and some i'd rather not name. Thank goodness for hebrew national. They answer to a higher authority.

we walked up and down the aisles, looking at the stuff that we might buy but wouldn't, because after all we were there just for the hotdogs and boy those were so good! by the time we got to the paint i was terribly confused as to what i really wanted to do with my room and made a mental note to watch a few more episodes of trading spaces before spending any money, as i might just want to go with a jungle theme instead of the slightly-overly-stuffy architectural digest take on the lincoln bedroom, though i highly suspect that room sees more action on a regular basis than mine does--and why don't they serve beer at home-improvement stores? i mean, that's what most guys drink when working with power tools.

the lighting aisle is way too hot. i don't care how cute the guy is that works it--and boy does he work it--i won't stay there a moment longer than it takes to pick a decent ceiling fan, you know the kind, the cabana-style, bungalo-on-malibu, i-found-it-at-a-good-will-store, $300 kind. and then we found we'd mostly run out of aisles and stood in line for half an hour, just to find the hot dog guy had left before we made it back outside, and i had little else to talk about... and just when we got outside i got a call from my friend in san pedro, who just bought the boat and i got invited to a weekend party and a three-hour tour of the bay! what to wear? what to wear?

i hate these hot summer days... oh but those hot summer nights...

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

e. a. poe