Monday, November 22, 2010

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face (toe to toe, shoulders squared)



And in this world that I live in now, I came home and there were messages for me from Spain, from London, missals from Iceland, comments from New York. He showed me a shirt from Pakistan, I drank coffee from South America, ate meat from Middle America, purchased oil from the Earth's core, dredged up and traveled through miles of pipe large enough for us to hide in. So this is the situation now, that I think of people half across the hemisphere and on the other side of this monitor, which is my mirror now. Like polished stones we used to use, before we learned how to melt sand and paint ourselves and send our image across country lines, and oh its amazing true, but now how common now how used to this now how conveniently distracting.

And here in Cleveland it is rainy and windy and warm. Like a hot wet breath exhaling before the snow comes.

We walked in the green light with purpose, and still slow, still hearing acutely the glass breaking under our feet and crunching into the cement. Each pool of water sitting quiet, like that wood between the worlds where Digory and Polly held hands and switched rings, and splashed through dimensions into dead planets and crawl spaces. Something like that will happen to me someday, I know it. Someday I'll go in and not come back.

Maybe I'll leave my name scrawled somewhere on the wall too, before I disappear, like a log of brave faces traveling before us. It's common too, people disappearing into other places, sending notes back that may or may not be true. Perhaps you're really drinking coffee there, like you say. Perhaps it's just a decoy note, sent from behind the curtain, to maintain our play time world. Maybe you'll never come back, or you, or you, or him, or her, or they, maybe you are all stolen, trapped in a cold white space waiting to come back. Or maybe I am closing the walls in around me, setting up the rules of my world, drawing up the manifesto, and you are either part of it or not, but whether it's you in reality, or just my crude sketch of your character is irrelevant. I regularly ask the boys I wake up next to if this is true, someday one of them will understand what I mean.

And here is a list of things I don't understand: the difference between Four Loko and an Irish coffee, the need for a prophet in every end of the world scenario, why the hairs on my arms never lie down flat, why my bathroom floor gets so dirty when I'm just walking in barefoot and coming out clean, how to make almond croissants, the science of a horn section, how to jump in and come out on the other side without being being stalled in the middle by what I'm sure can be described as fascination without too much sarcasm, why my cat hates me and yet longs for my undivided attention.

5 comments:

  1. "Maybe I'll leave my name scrawled somewhere on the wall too, before I disappear..."

    I think this a LOT.

    Beautiful, as always.

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  2. Did you read the Magician's Nephew, Ells?

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  3. Nope. Did I miss some awesome reference that makes me a total douche? Again?

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  4. It's one of the Chronicles of Narnia books, one of the best ones.

    I have like a pile of things to send you now - CD, book, photos.

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  5. Since your have such interesting titles for your posts, it is hard to look for the one that really drew me into. I am assuming that you are a writer... so I can hope that you get to write a book that is turned into a Oscar Awarding winning movie.

    You are amazing. Believe that.

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