Sometimes I lose my life, only to find her again in a bar, in a conversation, in a completed task, or in a run through the park. She's mine because she has a will, energy, and direction. When she walks in the sand she leaves footprints and they're often crooked, stepping to a jazz that she listens to on her own. The rest of the time I leave scarcely a toe print-jutting off the edge of the communal impression where my shapen foot doesn't quite jive with yours and yours and yours. Its our path I suppose, but we possess it soulessly, without contemplation, with a murky purpose. And all the while phantom ways dance inside my head, leaving vanishing toe prints on my play dough brain and I feel them as something that could be, that could have been. But nothing more. The impulses fade before I can shift even a little toe. To translate a potential into action, imagi
ne the neural pathways that must be run. So we walk, trod, plod, as indicated, aware of a settling unease and oblivious, just oblivious to a source, an escape, to ourselves marching to no end. And then I feel a peck on the neck or forearm and warmth spreads down my spine, into my soles and into my soul. A peck from full lips, anxious and loving, reincarnated upon meeting my molting skin. She's my life. Today I found her in the restaurants and bars of quito, as I shuddered and extended an arm and bent in a demi-plie, listening to myself dancing on my brain. And she grabbed me tight in a sprawling waltz as a stranger laid his life before my eyes. Because I saw how much deeper my feet sink with her and how good the sand feels between my toes and how much happier the course. So me and my life, I think we might shine for a while now. I think we might laugh loudly, and I think we might hope not to get lost again



martes, 12 de enero de 2021

Blossoming

 When I started this blog I lived in Quito, Ecuador. I started it sitting in the living room of a 4th floor apartment that had large floor to ceiling windows from which you could see a snow-capped peak, far, far off in the distance. 

I worked in a bar, called NoBar, rather a club that would become packed on weekends and most weekdays.

I stood in the middle of a large U-shaped elevated bar that had, in the center, a wide open space that we danced within. Sometimes we could call up guests, for example birthdays of the night, and shower everyone with champagne. 

This space was where I talked to the other bartenders and barbacks. What you might call a traditional bar, with a bartender and a shelf of liquor behind him, was just a small area of square-footage, located near the top of the U. We took the liquor to patrons seated around the bar, and talked to them. 

I lived in this apartment, about 5 blocks away, to the Northeast, a white and tan facade. I would walk up the white stairwell, open the door, walk through the living room, and go to my room, the window of which looked East and was above the head of my bed. The walls were white, I think there was a closet to the left of my bed, and I had a small shelf, contents on each tier exposed, on the wall to the right.

I remember taking the bus in Quito-- staring out the window, watching the bus attendant get off and on at stops, calling out destinations. I remember watching the city from the bus windows-- bus stops at the elbows of curved roads, green grass, tan five story buildings, fences, noise, advertisements, perhaps an old woman, all passing by. 

I would sit, up in my apartment, in a chair facing the windows and write. I started the blog because a guy I liked was a writer and I wanted to be a writer too.

I think there was something in me that never understood that to be a writer, to become one, to be known for it, I would have to bring my writing out into the world too. I never knew there was a world that could hear my writing, that it would be possible to grow my writing into. I'm aware of that now-- the belief in a world that didn't have me in it. 


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