Resist your mouth. There are no words to say to make it better. Like a pencil drawing, that been too much mussed over, no more pencil marks can make it appear more beautiful or more accurate. Sit and agonize in the misplaced lines that will always be there. Music pumped rhyming emotion into the car, while I wished I could join the sky in the endless, a place my lungs have often longed for, when I have allowed them deep breaths.
At Lulu Carpenter’s the music was just right: nostalgia beaten out of guitars in a way that makes it not hurt so much. Three girls sat, triangled, like points on a graph, lines that intersect for now, but with different trajectories and speed, we race towards heaven. Time being, until the coffee shop closes, we are a photograph, with laughing lips and lighted eyes, we try to describe the lines we are living.
From the wavering forest seen from the balcony at the Merrill Apts, to the white caps in the bay the wind blew with a large appetite, trying to swallow me whole. Rolling up my pants legs and wrapping my sweater about me, I laid my head on a bench in the sun and soak up the sun like tree leaves.
The Red Room is busy, when we arrived at midnight, staking out some cushioned chairs in this public living room, some friends brought back drinks. My eyes search the shadowy crowds. They are shadowy because of the dim lighting, and because the faces in the crowd lick my memory, whetting an appetite for familiar, reminding me of Once Upon A Time. Besides the cold sweaty glass in my hand, there is nothing to hang onto. The conversations buzz about me like trapeze artists, I relax into this circus.
I had no right to go metalingual, metaliteral; to repeat any of the lyrics. I’m sorry. I lost that right when I took the lid off the pressure cooker. I woke with guilt lodged in my throat like down comforter. I tossed and turned, trying to breath through the feathers. A poem I wrote in ninth grade came back to me word for word:
“I want to build an army
A thousand apologies strong,
March it through my past,
Say I’m sorry too many times.
But they will ask what is feeding my soldiers
And I won’t open that grab bag of worries."
I fell asleep again, when I remembered that it is always darkest before the dawn, and when morning came, perhaps it would be better.
I think I got drunk on Santa Cruz. The sparkling ocean. The breathable forest. The blue sky that was blue. Rich foods, eating out with friends in restaurants haunted with memory. Hug after hug after hug.
Now I am hung-over, in smoggy, sun dried LA. My stomach gnarls with a hunger I have no desire to satiate. I am reminding myself that is as wonderful and real as everything that came before.
4 comments:
can’t think of the proper words to say to the blog writing. I know how you feel I think.
I have some semi-pertinent questions, though. Do you think LA is evidence that humanity is degenerating into something more shallow than, say, the kind of humanity that exists in Santa Cruz? I mean, does it all come to this? Is santa cruz the way it is because it fights our natural progression?
Kind of bleak, but I can’t resist my mouth =/
You went from one of the most beautiful places in the country, to south central LA, and your senses seem keened on finding the beauty in things. How do you give up one beauty for another, or decide which is more bearable? In LA, you miss SC’s beauty, but in SC, would you/did you miss LA’s?
How do I change SC’s status in my head from the exgirlfriend syndrome? You know the one? Where she’s tolerable when you’re with her, but her annoying ticks get on your [darned] nerves, and you feel like you just gotta leave, but once you’re gone, all you can think about is how beautiful she was? Then, when you go visit again (and by “you” I’m referring to myself), she’s still just as beautiful, but I don’t know, it’s just not the same.
So now you’re stuck with where you are, and you’re not sure if you want to go back to where you were, and so what now?
C’mon, Alessandra. I have important life altering decisions on the horizon, it would be REALLY helpful if you made them all for me. =D Thanks.
Nam Le
Thank you for visiting. As Lisa said, "It felt like she never left. But it was wierd, because I'd gotten used to her not being here." I couldn't put it better myself. But it was a really good visit. Thank you.
Also, I can't beleive you wrote that in 9th grade! Holy Crap!
Oh nosatalgia. My good Lord, nostalgia. Did you have to mention every place there i miss. Dream of. I mean how silly is it to dream of red rooms and redwoods and a soychai at lulu's? I dunno, but i have been told i can be a silly girl.
I think SC is one of those places destined to be the "ex girlfriend." I could never live there again, but i long for it. Especially in LA. Aless i feel you and am curious about all, as usual, that you wrote between the lines.
When are we getting together again? Sheesh. We have the most difficult time getting together. Plus i need to get you out dancing. Perhaps the joy i find there is what sustains me in this place.
That, and, naturally, Jesus. (Come-on i HAD to give the sunday school answer... true though it is when i choose into it).
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