Impulsive.
Bourdain.
Period Talk – May Edition.
What Strange sceneries, even as the walls are closing in. Normal tasks that require focusing is out of mental reach. Instead I have this pulsing gray matter that goes away as I lay here. It refuses to settle down and rest even, sigh, I’m in the driver’s seat no more.
What do you say when you can’t say anything. Not because there’s nothing to say but because there’s too much. No time for pausing. And the frustration makes you have to let go. The grinding is just too much. Every second you are pushing against an invisible current. Somehow time conspires and pushes you out of the door and into the rabbit hole. You are left adrift in a loud, colorful foreign land fraught with danger. You just want to go home, you just want to rest.
But nobody knows what you are going through because they do not see. Even if you show them the bloodied bed-sheet they pretend it’s a flower thing. It is not a flower thing and fuck the bees. Period is messy, literally bloody and exhausting. Ever time I have it it’s just like the first time, and several times a day during that period I hate being a woman. Why do I have to go through this? Oh, right, they say it’s because of a sin. Well, fuck that, I’m going to take advantage of this “gift”.
It’s not quite getting high, for you do still have several degrees of control over your mind just enough to observe the fun experience. But the faster time flow has been activated. It’s like when you are recovering from a fever and you are floating between groggy land and a chaotic construction site. You can’t focus for shit, but guess what, free-association is all the rage.
Something tells me that we are all bags. Compared to grass we are a mobile entity. This is very important. Which means we are not bound by some patch of earth, we are master of space. But where should we go? Since we are less connected with nature we have to rely even more on nature for clues, and that gives us the ability to observe and reflect. Oh, you go the same way as I? Perfect, now we can be neighbors, let’s not kill each other on our first try shall we? All because we are bags of things that enable us to move around. I feel like a bag.
And other inspiring thoughts, most of which I don’t remember, mercifully. Oh, and music playing is actually much easier during period. You can say it really flows.
Chicken and Egg.
What if.
I see that look in your eyes,
like you are tired of your station in life.
Waiting for the sign with closed eyes,
click after click wasted time.
You think maybe you have something extra,
you fear that there’s something you lack.
Always the one being knocked down,
never can be sure what’s right what’s wrong.
One day you look up it starts to make sense,
walking too long in someone else’s footsteps.
The same map everyone’s buying and selling,
they ain’t heartless they are just as clueless.
See yourself as the one in your own mind,
say no to the wrong things the right ones will align.
It’s not going to be easy the first step or mile,
but what if you are right and what a story to tell.
Sweet Orleans – Part Deux.
It’s 11pm on a Wednesday, needless to say, the party is just getting started on Bourbon Street New Orleans. The masquerades with high expectations are arriving. The arteries start to flow in earnest: the music, the beer, the human-misery undertone. The last one keeps the former two company nicely. Vacationers here for the Jazz fest huddle at the bar-counter reminiscing the good times they just had during the day. You can tell they are not that impressed by this crowd. For it is but a chaser, the crazy after-party that never seems to end. It’s truly a testament to human endurance on the locals’ part.
On the street, there is all kind of humanity now. Most of them holding their beer as if it’s the Holy Water that can protect them from whatever ghost from their past. What I think though is that they are here to secretly rendezvous with their ghost. A glimpse of the damp, dark but warm and storied grave that this must feel like, with shadows of people too sober to be recognized, and consciousness too drunk to recollect. It’s a good feeling, you can get drunk without the beer this way. Being among this many people cheering, split-second decision making around you, you can’t help but feel alive. And there’s danger too, even better. The indifferent paces signal that they have seen more and ignored for less. Things happen on the street, this is where we celebrate both the real and the unreal. In this fervent twilight, we party till dawn when our soul crawls back to sleep.
There’s nowhere I’d like to go but to visit the Tree of Life right next to the Audubon Zoo. I don’t know what an old oak tree should look like but this one looks young to me. And welcoming. With low trunk-like branches that shade you from the New Orleans sun and provide an almost hammock like nook for laying on. It is the tree of my dream. But I am reminded of something else that happened to the trees, or rather what these trees bared witness to. As I drink in the peaceful setting, on a warm afternoon, with other equally impressed visitors enjoying the same tranquility, I start to browse about lynching on my phone. If you want to look, remember Mary Turner. I try to unsee the torn black bodies hanging from the tree that I’m hanging about on. But something sweet hit the back of my tongue, to my surprise.
…
As I watch the Mississipi river flows before me now, carrying the cargos and garbages alike upstream and downstream, I can’t help but feel its disquiet. This river has been disturbed, and yet it’s silent like it’s gathering its strength. The sweetness transforms me, it soothes me to know that we are of the great people who are accepting of their fate, and still carrying on.
Sweet Orleans – Part Un.
“Hey you! Can you buy me some food!”
The black lady came at me as if she knew me, that I owed her money. After the initial shock, I knew what to do. I smiled and shook my head politely ignoring the other black ladies’ (who were standing around) startled stares. It’s night time, I was on my way back to my hostel from this Walmart nearby. This is a black neighborhood, the Garden District. But I was still surprised, as I was headed to the Wing Stop, searching for dinner myself.
I stepped inside the Wing Stop, expected to be saved from the unexpected unwanted attention. Immediately I saw this customer who was waiting for his order (Need I say that he’s black? Along with the employees who were fulfilling the take-out orders and cleaning the place up for closing?) rushed towards me, and before I could react, he reached out and held the door open behind me, for the clearly disabled lady who was hollering at me asking for food not a moment ago. I had almost shut the door on her. I escaped the Wing Stop, feigning indifference to their food options. As I was walking away, I saw that lady was getting some water from their fountain, and nobody thought that was anything but normal.
This person, who held the door for the poor and deprived lady to whom I had turned my back, made me ashamed but he also welcomed me, they all did. They had shown me the character of the place, the real character. I wonder who is the deprived one.
It’s a public place, so I thought I was safe. Safe to zone out and enjoy the Mississippi River to my left, and the Jackson Square to my right. After enjoying some impressive impromptu Irish pipe music dealt out by a street artist in full kilt, who was then discouraged by the silent but pointed circling of a police officer for further profit, I was amused and clearly rendered content by the never-can-be-fully-described beignets. Another person was sitting one seat over, what of it? I wanted to be quiet to soak in the good-cheers and merriment. That person was trying to pick a conversation with some other folks sitting on the other side, to no avail. They seemed to be ignoring him. Well, thank god more people want some peace and quiet in this cool French Quarter evening. Then he poked me on my arm.
We struck up a conversation. He’s a middle-aged man, quite handsome and he knew it. He listed his artistic explorations, did some impersonations. He asked where my husband was, I was on guard but as his story progressed, I realized that an artist can never truly lie. So we sparred, we picked something outta each other, I think I won in the end. Before we parted I gave him $20 so he could eat that night, and because he asked. He’s off again on his way to find himself and others. I wish him luck.
Do you understand?
You tried to hold my hand,
I brushed it away in silence.
I do feel sorry for you,
another leave-me-alone that you grow used to.
I want you to understand,
I get high sometimes.
Just by walking under the stars,
or a touch of a tree in the park.
Such as now I can see the time
slowing down and stretching around.
The night sharpens its edges,
and the sensation overwhelms.
Flying inside the crystal glass,
melting with all that is and will ever be.
I would like to share my experience,
but words are not what they need.
Or should I explain the sensation?
It’s like the soul leaving the shell.
Every step takes me closer
to a myth that I can never ever tell.
Sorry not sorry, I won’t pretend,
you are my dearest and I will abide.
But there are times such as this,
I will need to be alone to be alive.
Black and grey.
I feel despair twirling around me washing me down. It’s a familiar sensation, but the forefront of the storm does not come from me but from the one sitting next to me, seeking help. I thought I’d guided her enough for her to at least not to be afraid of this far-too-alien thing she’s working on, or more precisely for the moment, I’m working on. She’s a graduate student that needs help making an experiment work for her paper. I can see that she’s upset like she’s not used to being so helplessly lost. It’s just English, I remember telling her, mixed with some logic symbols so the machines can understand. I also told her: it’s like talking to a very stupid and yet very intelligent tool. My guess is that does not help one bit. People have anxieties, and this thing that feels nothing just deals in 1s and 0s. I guess it’s nice being so primitive.
The coffee is getting cold. Good thing I drank most of it before she came, the bitter smooth taste still sours my palate, just the way I like it, as it distracts me from my guilt. I move away from both the taste and the background emotional radiation so I can find a solution to this problem in front of the man-made screen with a man-made experiment using a man-made program that speaks a man-made language. That’s my domain for a time and that’s where I learned how to talk.
Easy enough, several misconceptions and curious explorations later, things start to work and the previously downcasted student becomes much more animated with suggestions of workarounds and talks of new visions for her experiment. It’s always uplifting to see that happen. I feel her mood changing from dark grey to white yellow, but I do not dwell on that either. All too familiar with that cycle. But for me, it’s kinda the opposite. When I cannot figure something out, I get pumped, and when I’m finished with it, either from giving up or succeeding, I feel down. There’s not much difference.
How can anyone truly despair when there’s so much left to know? I guess that depends on what you want to know. When there’s no longer any observer, will these 1s and 0s mean anything?
I wonder if we are being too loud in this narrow coffee shop that’s half-filled with students and people lounging about. Another gorgeous day. I feel a bit apologetic, but my companion does not seem to take notice, too wrapped up in her excitement now. Might as well, it’s not my favorite coffee shop anyway.
Bricks in the wall.
Ming is counting the bricks, up to three. She looks at their weathered red-orange color and their texture, they fascinate her. She traces several of them with her fingers, they seem real enough. Isolating, limiting, real. There’s nobody here during the high-school recess in the back of the building. The brick wall in front of her separates her school from another one-thing-or-another that she does not remember. The school ground, on the other hand, is all hers, and she knows it well. Right now she just wants to be alone, floating on the edge of something that is one of her confines.
She can hear the echoes of her school-mates running, shouting, playing somewhere not that far away. Just pass the building facing the wall is the soccer field. It is rather big and Ming likes it better when it’s vacant. She sees these images of people passing along going about their lives on that field before it’s covered with sand and gravel. Right now, there’re simply too many people taking advantage of that space. It loses its magical appeal.
The space sandwiched by the wall and the building is straight and narrow, it’s very sterile too, just dirt and bricks. And Ming considers this a safe place. She lets herself fill the empty space and feel the stillness reaches back to her. She needs it. More than her need to run about with her classmates. She becomes not social again. For a while, she had a little group, but now, now she needs to sort some stuff out, or rather not having any stuff to sort out with. She comes here to not think, just feel.
She’s not a bad student, in fact, she’s top ten of her year, but there’re just too many things that she can’t seem to grasp, herself most of all. She’s still cutting school sometimes, lying to the teachers that she will be studying on her own instead of in the classroom. And because she’s such a good student, the teachers let her. So she would take her bike out of the impossibly entangled bike-pile and go for a ride. Sometimes by the neighborhood (carefully avoiding the places where she might encounter the parents of course), but most of the times she would ride along the river and stop by the park alongside it. There’s a tree there with silvery leaves. She thinks it has all the magic in the world.
Sometimes she would seek adventure on the school ground. There’s this new science building that’s still not fully functional yet, but the doors are open even though no one’s supposed to be there. Ming likes to walk in the white corridors and on the winding staircases, all by herself. She feels like a ghost, she wants to see if she can scare somebody. But rather she’s the one that gets scared when on the rare occasions she does see someone there. She’s not sure if she’s more scared of people or ghost.
Sometimes she would venture on the narrow, bare-steel fire-escape up to the roof of one of the lower sprawling buildings just because it’s something to do. Ming had one companion once in this endeavor, but they don’t know each other very well, so it’s just this one time. She remembers feeling like there’s magic in that too. They looked out onto the soccer field and saw different things. It’s kinda scary for Ming to be in high places. She always has this urge to fall down.
To say Ming is lonely is not an accurate assessment, she simply doesn’t know how else to be. Even when she’s among her best friends, she has this insolation around her. She doesn’t talk loudly, or fast, or much. It just feels like there’s not much to say. Information holds no value nor meaning for her. She has been in school most of her life at this point and her worldview has not altered from the first time she glimpsed it. So there’s theirs and there’s hers, and there’s time for one or the other. But mostly, she needs her time. She’s like still in the womb, or rather she’d like to go back to the womb and be born again just in case she missed anything. So you see she has no time for the other stuff. It’s not like she’s hiding from it or anything.
She tries to climb the wall now, thinking that her tender fingers can latch themselves onto the tiny crevices between two bricks to hoist herself up, then use the tips of her shoes to gain purchases on the wall’s rough surface. She does not go far. But she keeps trying. There’s no real goal involved, only exertion for fun. She looks at her raw dirty fingers and smiles. Time to go back to the classroom. The wall knows she will be back.
hotsurf_ 