I am about to become the sole patron at the TeaSource on a cold, windy Friday night. From just a few yards down the sidewalk, a movie house expels crowds of couples at various stages of dating, families catching the latest Pixar animation, teenagers squawking in little flocks that quickly form, break apart, and just as quickly gather again.
Here I am, sitting alone at a side table in this quiet, warm little tea shop. Somber music plays faintly over the room. A college-aged shop girl ignores me from behind the counter. Or is she wondering what the hell I am doing here on a Friday night, the only customer that remains? This is how I choose to live my life, peacefully, cognizant, introspective, and solitary. There it is, that word that holds such allure for me; the solitarian.
A second employee appears. They rotate taking their breaks in the back room or skirting outside with a cell phone held to the ear. This new tea-girl packs up boxes for catalog orders. She pours looseleaf tea into tinfoil bags, seals them, slaps labels onto boxes, all of the while chewing on her gum and sniffling. Tea powder gets in the nasal passages, causes a tickle you can’t scratch.
People shuffle past the shop window, shoulders hunched against the wind. Maybe it is the cold wind outside, or the fact that I am alone in a teashop on a Friday night, but the Feist song playing over the speakers has never sounded so solemn. I think of going home and playing her CD in its entirety, but I know that it won’t hold the same spell for me that it does here, in a warmly lit shop on Cleveland Avenue on a Friday night, out among people, watching them without interacting.
New customers arrive, families coming out of the cold for a cup of non-caffeinated herbal teas and lemon cakes for their children, newlyweds with their magazines or laptops, occasionally looking dejectedly at one another.
I eavesdrop on a young couple pitched forward on their chairs. It must be their first date; I can tell by how interested and happy they are with one another. I am glad that I can still feel happiness for them, being a divorcee that could instead be thinking jadedly of their naïveté. I feel their optimism warming the back of my neck. It wasn't so long ago that I felt the same thing, right? I feel it again through them.
I stay until the customers slowly filter out, and I’m once again the last customer. It’s time to close up shop, to finish my writing, but I want to end with something else, anything besides what is directly in front of me. I want to block out music in the teashop with the rhythm of words. Words that ring with their own music on the tongue, the harmony of vowels, the sharp staccato of consonants.
What do I see? Foothills flicker in the light of a campfire. Orange and yellow shadows play like silent films on the sand and brush. Burning logs collapse upon themselves, letting loose a spray of sparks like a burst of confetti falling skyward.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
"The Song Is You" by Arthur Phillips
I was looking for an entertaining read from a modern writer, something with some hype around it, and maybe a love story from a man's point of view. This one fit the profile, and was about inrequited love; even better.
Though it involved a middle-aged man and the mutual attraction with an Irish vocalist/songwriter on the brink of making it big, I think it was really about a man and his love for music. The way it takes just the right song at the right moment to bring out the strongest flavors of life. The way songs of our past can be a more potent memoir than photographs or diaries could ever be. The way "shuffle" on an iPod can be a direct line of communication with the fates.
It was good, not great. I found myself frequently being hit over the head with Phillips's wit, kind of like I felt with Wilde. I liked how well he showed us the passion and perfection-seeking of the audiophile. It also explored the pursuit of art under commercial influences. Our hunger for acceptance and praise, the need for accolades, but not at any price.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
What the Cicadas Showed Me
Listen to those Cicadas wailing away. There’s something distinctly electronic in their song, something strung out taut like a piano string wound too tight, something otherworldly. It is as though the circuitry of the planet is rewiring itself in preparation for the change of winter, only there is a cross-circuit somewhere nearby, a blip in the grid and the cicadas sound the alarm.
You become aware, through certain words, certain thoughts tuned to just the right frequency, that there is a thin curtain concealing mysteries from you and everyone else. Once in a great while, you catch a mere glimpse of what lies behind, but just enough to know that it is there. Despite the split second exposure of this secret, you know with absolute certainty of its substance, its fact, its truth, but how can you be so confident? Maybe within the brain there is a buried sensitivity, a sensory gland that you have done everything in your power to turn off, but at certain times, something triggers it. Like the sound of cicadas. Synapses fire up, microscopic lightning bolts light up the darkness of your subconscious: “Oh yeah. That’s right. I remember now.”
Then it’s gone. A soothing voice like that of a loving parent leaning over the bars of your crib says, “Ssssshhhh. It’s only cicadas. It’s late summer, and fall is coming. That’s all. You’ve heard them thirty seven times now, remember? Go to sleep. Fall back to sleep now…”
But the curtain stirs restlessly now, and what lies behind peeks out with increased frequency. You wait with impatient excitement for the curtain to be drawn and the show to begin.
You become aware, through certain words, certain thoughts tuned to just the right frequency, that there is a thin curtain concealing mysteries from you and everyone else. Once in a great while, you catch a mere glimpse of what lies behind, but just enough to know that it is there. Despite the split second exposure of this secret, you know with absolute certainty of its substance, its fact, its truth, but how can you be so confident? Maybe within the brain there is a buried sensitivity, a sensory gland that you have done everything in your power to turn off, but at certain times, something triggers it. Like the sound of cicadas. Synapses fire up, microscopic lightning bolts light up the darkness of your subconscious: “Oh yeah. That’s right. I remember now.”
Then it’s gone. A soothing voice like that of a loving parent leaning over the bars of your crib says, “Ssssshhhh. It’s only cicadas. It’s late summer, and fall is coming. That’s all. You’ve heard them thirty seven times now, remember? Go to sleep. Fall back to sleep now…”
But the curtain stirs restlessly now, and what lies behind peeks out with increased frequency. You wait with impatient excitement for the curtain to be drawn and the show to begin.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Dream With Eyes Awake
There was this guy once who could begin to dream while he was still awake. He would stare at a certain spot in the room with unfocused eyes, begin breathing deep and regular, and then wait for the curtain to fall. Or rise, depending on which side you’re standing on. Once his thoughts took the form of images that began moving on their own, it was all he could do to hold back his excitement and maintain the balance of dream and wakefulness, like cupping his hand around a sputtering flame to shed just enough light on his subconscious.
What did he dream about in those moments between hemispheres? He dreamt of the cars he had stolen in his youth, submerged at the bottom of a lake after the wild rides across town had come to an end. He dreamt of beachfront mansions flooded by the tide, hallways filling with sand, water crashing at the base of a staircase, escape routes cut off, the foundation sliding into the sea. He dreamt of fishing in pools of water so clear that he could see the shadows of fish curling among the rocks, the glint of green scales. The line tugged as he caught a big one, but as he dragged it to shore he saw that the fish had long been dead.
All the while he dreamt, his eyes were open, scanning back and forth, up and down, fingertips twitching until, without reason, his eyes stopped their rhythmic movement and drew their focus back to the room at hand. He would start to laugh, or look sad, or still afraid as the dream wavered like drapes in an open window, dissolve away like cotton candy on the tongue.
What did he dream about in those moments between hemispheres? He dreamt of the cars he had stolen in his youth, submerged at the bottom of a lake after the wild rides across town had come to an end. He dreamt of beachfront mansions flooded by the tide, hallways filling with sand, water crashing at the base of a staircase, escape routes cut off, the foundation sliding into the sea. He dreamt of fishing in pools of water so clear that he could see the shadows of fish curling among the rocks, the glint of green scales. The line tugged as he caught a big one, but as he dragged it to shore he saw that the fish had long been dead.
All the while he dreamt, his eyes were open, scanning back and forth, up and down, fingertips twitching until, without reason, his eyes stopped their rhythmic movement and drew their focus back to the room at hand. He would start to laugh, or look sad, or still afraid as the dream wavered like drapes in an open window, dissolve away like cotton candy on the tongue.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Look What The Tide Brought In
The bum washed up on shore on a beautiful May morning, seaweed chained to his legs, a bottle of bourbon half drunk in his pocket, no message inside. Was his death a message to the town? The bay was a killer, and she was just getting warmed up for summer, waiting to claim unwary swimmers, fisherman that stayed out in the storms, the occasional suicide from a Bay Bridge leap. The bum was her calling card that the drowning season was just getting in gear.
The bum smelled badly. The woman who had discovered the body, taking her dog for an early morning jog, held her shirt-sleeve up to her nose and mouth when she brought over the police for introductions. Unwashed, sweaty, oily, and that was back when he was alive. The police recognized him, remembered his slight lisp, bags under his eyes, the way he wiped his nose nervously on a sleeve when children would point him out to their mothers. The bay had bathed him, but that didn’t help the smell. Instead of the stink of life it was the stink of death, the simple fact of how quickly we become so much meat the moment the spirit leaves the body.
They photographed, bagged and tagged him while the sun glinted off the water, and a cool breeze blew leeward. Seagulls dipped and weaved over the waves. Teenagers clambered into sailboats for a morning lesson, ropes clanging against the rigging like bells.
The bum smelled badly. The woman who had discovered the body, taking her dog for an early morning jog, held her shirt-sleeve up to her nose and mouth when she brought over the police for introductions. Unwashed, sweaty, oily, and that was back when he was alive. The police recognized him, remembered his slight lisp, bags under his eyes, the way he wiped his nose nervously on a sleeve when children would point him out to their mothers. The bay had bathed him, but that didn’t help the smell. Instead of the stink of life it was the stink of death, the simple fact of how quickly we become so much meat the moment the spirit leaves the body.
They photographed, bagged and tagged him while the sun glinted off the water, and a cool breeze blew leeward. Seagulls dipped and weaved over the waves. Teenagers clambered into sailboats for a morning lesson, ropes clanging against the rigging like bells.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Chelsea's Violin
He was discharged from the army after the battle of Amiens, where he’d been hit by a shell on a Frenchman’s pockmarked dairy field. He left his leg beside a creek that looked like it would have been good for brook trout. What happened to brook trout during a war? he wondered from a hospital bed to pass the time. They sent him back home to Dover, England. His aunt had passed while he was at the Front, so now he returned to an empty cottage by the coast.
The quiet of the cottage wears on his nerves, as does the drone of fighter planes patrolling high above the cliffs of Dover at night. He tries to labor in the vegetable garden outside, but the lack of leg leaves him off-kilter. He waits by the fence for someone to come by, a chance to say hello. Scarved old ladies on their way to market. Trucks loaded with bleating sheep. After a while, a young woman comes by on her bicycle and smiles to him. He watches for her each morning but sees her only on Tuesdays, pedaling by with a violin case strung over her shoulder. He finds excuses to be by the fence, and one morning he asks her name and about the violin case.
“It’s actually a viola. Slightly bigger than a violin, a deeper sound.”
“They’re all just fiddles to me,” he jokes. “Would you play for me sometime?”
“I can’t,” she shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Bollocks with proper. During these times?”
“Precisely during these times,” she says. She pulls her wrap around her shoulders, gives him a nod good-day and pedals away.
Maybe she feels as though she behaved too harshly to the maimed solider, for the next week she stops along the fence to play some notes for him, still sitting on her bicycle seat. She plays again the next week from within the garden gate, and she eventually joins him inside for tea in his aunt’s parlor. Their Tuesdays form a regular pattern where Chelsea joins him for a cup of tea and to play for him the latest pieces that she has been practicing. Also in the parlor is an old upright piano that has fallen out of tune. He says he could get a boy to come tune it if she would play. She says she can’t play, so there’s no use.
He almost loves watching her preparations as much as he loves the sound of the viola. He gazes on the curves and rich colors of the varnished wood so delicate that it could easily crush beneath his hands, but its beauty is such that he is compelled to corral his strength. He cannot refrain from running his fingertips along the grain. Its bridge is crooked, years of tension bending it forward. Rosin on the bow. The body cupped below her chin, then the stroking of the bow across the strings. Vibration deep in her belly. The moan of diminished F sharp, the cry of high C, the wavering vibrato along her neck.
The quiet of the cottage wears on his nerves, as does the drone of fighter planes patrolling high above the cliffs of Dover at night. He tries to labor in the vegetable garden outside, but the lack of leg leaves him off-kilter. He waits by the fence for someone to come by, a chance to say hello. Scarved old ladies on their way to market. Trucks loaded with bleating sheep. After a while, a young woman comes by on her bicycle and smiles to him. He watches for her each morning but sees her only on Tuesdays, pedaling by with a violin case strung over her shoulder. He finds excuses to be by the fence, and one morning he asks her name and about the violin case.
“It’s actually a viola. Slightly bigger than a violin, a deeper sound.”
“They’re all just fiddles to me,” he jokes. “Would you play for me sometime?”
“I can’t,” she shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Bollocks with proper. During these times?”
“Precisely during these times,” she says. She pulls her wrap around her shoulders, gives him a nod good-day and pedals away.
Maybe she feels as though she behaved too harshly to the maimed solider, for the next week she stops along the fence to play some notes for him, still sitting on her bicycle seat. She plays again the next week from within the garden gate, and she eventually joins him inside for tea in his aunt’s parlor. Their Tuesdays form a regular pattern where Chelsea joins him for a cup of tea and to play for him the latest pieces that she has been practicing. Also in the parlor is an old upright piano that has fallen out of tune. He says he could get a boy to come tune it if she would play. She says she can’t play, so there’s no use.
He almost loves watching her preparations as much as he loves the sound of the viola. He gazes on the curves and rich colors of the varnished wood so delicate that it could easily crush beneath his hands, but its beauty is such that he is compelled to corral his strength. He cannot refrain from running his fingertips along the grain. Its bridge is crooked, years of tension bending it forward. Rosin on the bow. The body cupped below her chin, then the stroking of the bow across the strings. Vibration deep in her belly. The moan of diminished F sharp, the cry of high C, the wavering vibrato along her neck.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Waiting for Something to Happen
It is Friday night and I’m sitting in the tea shop with my laptop and trying to think of something to write. At this point, I would even settle for something to retool from the thousand-plus pages of my journal, but nothing appeals to me. Hundreds of possibilities, but they are all dead to me.
There’s nothing in my head, either. How could I be so empty? I’m calm and relaxed in the humid air of mid June. My limbs are heavy after having been worked to exhaustion during my morning chores around the house. What am I saying; I did a load of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher.
Maybe I don’t want to write because I have found myself in one of those down times, caught in a doldrum at sea with all of my sails whithering on the mast. I don’t want to write. Reading is fine, movies better. Even staring off into space or at the people filing down the sidewalk is better than writing. I soak everything up but give nothing back. How long will this last? Writing teachers say I should respect this time of incubation, or is it a convenient rationale for laziness? I don’t know, I won’t worry about it. I’m reading the Pen/O. Henry Prize stories of 2009. I’m watching Revoltionary Road and True Blood. I’m watching the leaves of the crab apple tree in my back yard turn yellow and fall to the ground with apple scab. I’m waiting for something to happen.
There’s nothing in my head, either. How could I be so empty? I’m calm and relaxed in the humid air of mid June. My limbs are heavy after having been worked to exhaustion during my morning chores around the house. What am I saying; I did a load of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher.
Maybe I don’t want to write because I have found myself in one of those down times, caught in a doldrum at sea with all of my sails whithering on the mast. I don’t want to write. Reading is fine, movies better. Even staring off into space or at the people filing down the sidewalk is better than writing. I soak everything up but give nothing back. How long will this last? Writing teachers say I should respect this time of incubation, or is it a convenient rationale for laziness? I don’t know, I won’t worry about it. I’m reading the Pen/O. Henry Prize stories of 2009. I’m watching Revoltionary Road and True Blood. I’m watching the leaves of the crab apple tree in my back yard turn yellow and fall to the ground with apple scab. I’m waiting for something to happen.
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