For Something Else

My heart started beating when I realized my turn to speak was coming up, a kind of pounding right in the center of my chest that lightly echoed in a full body reverberation. The dj, wearing a vest made of sheet music, looked towards me, microphone in hand. In a deep, practiced voice, he said:
“Now a few words from the sister of the bride and Desiree, the sister of the groom.” 
My body reacted and I stood up. I walked towards him, reached for the mic and waited as Desiree took her place beside me. The mic was slightly warm in my grip.
I stood there, looking first at my sister on my left, sitting in an off the shoulder white dress at a small table just for two, her husband next to her.  I looked into the crowd of people, sitting behind plates of food and half filled wine glasses. Some of them I knew from childhood, others were still strangers.
I looked into them, but did not really see them, not as individuals, not even like people. They were a mass of energy and even though they appeared as human shapes, my perception went past that simple quality. 
I took a breath, my body somehow relaxing on its own without brain intervention. I looked at the groom, sitting in a suit and jacket beside my sister.
I opened my mouth and got exactly three words out before the fourth caught in my throat. I was immediately surprised by it, hearing it from a stranger’s perspective even though it came out of me. My years of training moved through me in that moment as I calmly kept going, speaking slowly enough for the words to move through me, a vessel talking to the great pulsating mass that went beyond us. 

Later I understood that my sister wanted a party, a real party with dancing and energy. It was then I understood, it was then I decided that I would be that party. I would be the dancing body, I would help her create that invocation.
The only way to make a party is to be a party.  I wiggled and jumped to rap. I bounced and sang to early 90s hip hop. I gathered my chiffon skirt up and did some grinding to Justin Timberlake.
We were on a patio, just steps from the ocean waters now black under the night sky. Between us and the ocean was a cement promenade, even at night there were people walking by. I realized we were on display, the dancers, the people standing on the sidelines grabbing drinks at the bar, the older couples standing against the cement ledge, we were all on display and I let myself be a spectacle, giving up self conscious thoughts about what the three black guys thought of us dancing to Tupac or what the couple walking hand in hand perceived as they saw us dancing in a circle around the bride and groom. I flowed into the pure ritual of it, allowing myself to be a dancer, a singer of repeated tunes, a sister of the bride, a wild invocant mixing tribal movements and fist pumping and flamenco to “I like big butts and I cannot lie…”

Singing The War

As the music played, soft and sustaining, as the saxophone came in and out like lapping waves against the shore, as it mingled with the heart-grabbing bass and sustained rhythm which moved her to the wordless core, she closed her eyes. 
Inside where there was at first darkness, the shape of a jigsaw puzzle formed.  Hundreds of scattered pieces floated in space, some of them glinted with flecks of yellow and earth and trees blowing in the wind.  She heard a voice.
“Sing the war,” it urged. “Let it come out in sound.”
Her mouth opened and she found the root and from there she bounced up slowly gathering colors. There were large bonfires with orange flames forming great cones of sweeping embers, they scattered up into the twilight.  Looking down over the hillsides she could see half a dozen fires. 
The peasants were running. Barefoot and dressed in white, the soles of their feet almost as white as their dingy rags. They ran as a great horde down the hillside and out of view, children and thick women with bouncing breasts, young women holding their newborns in their arms. They ran leaving all they had in their piece-meal houses of wood and refuse, just a few old men thinking to grab machetes. 
She jumped up with her voice, going higher. She saw the great metal monsters of the American and Salvadoran army, huge helicopters painted a pale olive green. Men jumped from the open side of the metal birds with their guns in front of them like precious babies. Jaws locked and faces hard, they hit the ground running. They jumped onto the overgrown hillside, the whirlwind of the helicopter blades moving everything in a rush. They ran towards the jungle looking for targets. 
The sounds of her voice got louder, stronger, coming from a place of complete commitment, the story told in tone and quarter notes while the saxophone kept along, leaping like a faithful dog by her side.
And then the face of a pretty young woman, mocha skin and dark eyes and smiling for the camera.  The same girl, standing in a jungle clearing, sunlight illuminating her from behind, baggy pants and long sleeved shirt rolled up to her elbows.  She stood looking into the distance lost in thought.  The same girl, hands tied behind her back moments before the end. 
And then the singing stopped as a wave of emotion rushed forward like a giant sweeping in, coating not just her eyes, but her legs and arms and chest and back in chills and tears. She opened her eyes and looked around, seeing the same familiar collection of people and things, tables and chairs and an assortment of collected instruments on the shelves. 
No one was there to meet her eyes, no one had seen the fires or metal birds, no one had seen the girl but her.

The Golden Eye

The hilltops are high above me as I search for my brother with the golden eye. 
All the others have fallen, somewhere between the sea and the desert there are many corpses, brown hair with waves, blue eyed boys who stare up at the sun without blinking, a mother who has lost her young.
They are there, on the land, in the rivers, boys, brothers. And it is me who climbs these cliffs still searching for the one with the golden eye. 
Brother or god?  Man and lover, father of life and creation.
I scan the black ravines and wonder if he can see me here on this treetop, my strong thighs gripping the bark as I cling and scan and squint.  Birds come and perch on my thin white arms like branches, they sing in my ear little melodies of encouragement.
The black streaked ones sing a melancholic tune, and when they sing my body grows desperate. Perhaps he is gone forever, our father and lover, our king and creator, our leader with the golden eye. 
Does he run or is he lost?  Does he hide or does he wait to be found? 
I am unsure as I take each step, not quite able to read my heart in the clouds.  The leaves stir on the parched ground, all red and yellow and crackling beneath my soft footsteps. They are of no help.  I can't read them, their silent fortunes are obscure and lost to the wind. 
I keep walking, I have been here before, so many times on this search.
Brother, brother- I have written about you before.  Father lover, I have written of your name and this search.  My fallen kin among the seas and sands, I have written of you in countless pages. 
I walk clutching my breasts, yearning for comfort, for the mother that is lost in these trees and shadows. I add my tears to the ocean, lending them only briefly to the trickle of the river. 
Perhaps in the next world I will drink my own sadness in a goblet of glass. These steps seem like a very wide circle, so wide it becomes invisible. 
My brothers are gone and I continue on, still looking for the man with the golden eye.

Thoughts In The Labyrinth

They sit in a circle in a dimly lit room.  Candles flicker on the fireplace mantle and cast shadows from the wiry kiwi branches onto the ceiling.  The black curtains are drawn and they are all alone- three bodies who try for a moment to leave the labyrinth and cortex behind, to emerge new from the trappings of intelligence and talk without walls. 
She looks at the man in front of her.  In most societies he would be considered an adult, a man with graying hair, more than forty years of age.  He sits in front of her illuminated in the golden light, imitating her sounds and creating syllables without meaning.

“dooooahhh” she says.
“dooahhhhhhhhh” he repeats one octave below.
“ti ti ta ma to sooooo.”
“ta toooo ta ma to sooooo.”

They all smile.  Someone shifts slightly on the futon.  A part of her ego breaks off and wanders down the labyrinth alone.
She wonders just where she is and who she’s with.  Who is the man in front of her?  The man making sounds? 
The strangeness of the moment hits her, rustles up against old thought patterns and rubs at convention.  Do adults do this?  Do they sit in a circle, letting the stars and night turn to day? Do they make sounds and sing together, pushing their bodies beyond normal comfort to remain seated in a circle?  Do they breathe loudly, moving their hands wildly as though there were music, though none is playing?

“MUUahhhhh, sahhhh, tiiiii.”
“MUUahhhhh, sahhhh, tiiiiiaaaaaa.”

Her ego searches through the known, all those layers sitting, accumulating since birth, waiting for a moment in the light.  “Known” meaning words, thoughts, convention. 
She looks again at the man, long wisps of white hair shine in the candlelight. 
This is not what adults do, though they could all be considered adults with driver’s licenses, bills, kids, cars, jobs- and yet they are not.

In another space she watches two young boys, both just a few feet off the ground.  She is supposed to be the adult there.  She feeds them noodles and bananas and makes sure they are warm and dry.  She comforts them after a fall and tucks them into bed with a lullaby.
And yet, she does not only do what the other adults do. Before bed she sits them next to her by the computer, she practices her singing while they watch and sometimes follow along, clapping as they sing along.  She imitates them in the hallway with her body, stomping her foot when they do, she jumps when they do, yells into the air when they do- they notice what she does and laugh- delighting in the exchange.
But that is not what adults do.  Not the adults they know.  She is their Other. She is like the graying man, a living signifier for another path. 

The Order Of The Factors

I woke up this morning with a sense that it was too early to be up. It was a work day, but it wasn't time to work yet. I still had a couple of hours. I didn't want the night to end.
I had woken up at the wrong time but I was fully awake, all drowsiness had left me like water falling from a bucket, leaving it empty and ready for something new to come to fill it.
I looked at the clock and saw that it was an hour and half earlier than the time I usually woke up. A pain on the side of my hip had been bothering me for several weeks. It wouldn’t let me sleep for long no matter how hard I tried. I tossed and turned during the night, repeatedly pulled out of restless dreams by the recurring shocks of deep pain coursing through my body like tiny messengers wrapped in red flame.
I was wide awake but I didn't get up from the bed. Instead I lay there, vainly trying to understand what had just happened. My eyes were open but I just stared at the gray ceiling in a kind of dazed stupor. The questions that invaded my mind didn't have enough of a clear shape to require answers. Instead they just floated through my consciousness, mute witnesses to aftershocks of searing pain.
Without saying it to myself, I was making a last ditch effort to sleep some more, to find some remaining crumbs of restful peace before the day actually started. Maybe if I stared long enough, sleep would overtake me and I would recede into dreams for just a little longer, enough to let me flee the looming and unavoidable reality.
But my efforts were in vain. I was wrestled out of any remaining sleepiness by my insistent thoughts, by my shapeless questions, by my undefined images.
I looked out the window and saw that the sky was still dark, a dark blue fading into a lighter grayish color, a heavy night that was slowly but stubbornly changing into another ephemeral day. A touch of red was timidly showing up in the distance, over the roofs of the Victorian houses, all the way to where the very top of the Golden Gate Bridge could be glimpsed surrounded by white shining fog. A clear promise that the sun would be coming soon. Unusual for a city as foggy as this one.
I decided to get up and do something I hadn’t done in a very long time: I would watch the sun come out, I would watch it unfold its warm morning light over the city, a spectacle I once enjoyed in my youth but which had been nearly forgotten with the passing of time.
I stood up, went to the closet and picked some sweaters and shoes in case it was very cold. It's usually cold in this city where I live, very different from where I grew up. I'm still not quite used to it. Something inside of me still wishes it was different. As if the weather would follow my wishes, as if my wishes had a grain of objective truth hidden within their multiple subjective folds.
As I went through the choices in my closet, my memory went back to a particular day in the past. I couldn't remember the details of the day. I couldn't say what had happened or what I had been doing. I could only remember that I had been looking for something. It had been a day when, no matter how much effort I put into my search, I couldn’t bring myself to find that thing which I was looking for. I remembered that I eventually found a solution. The way I finally did find what I had been looking for was by sitting and contemplating the world around me for a long period of time. Quietly. Softly. Subtly. Without rush.
To contemplate in length seemed so easy, so simple. And yet I had not done anything like it in such a long time. Like waking up early, like looking at the rising sun. Things I had forgotten.
When I first moved into this apartment, I made sure I went out to the balcony early to sit and contemplate. I would do this for at least thirty minutes every day before engaging in my daily routine.

I kept this up for a while, until one day I suddenly dropped it. I couldn't really say why. I can't even say for sure that I noticed when it happened. Suddenly it was gone. Like so many things, it just fell out of rhythm, out of step. Maybe I didn’t get that much sleep the night anymore, so it was harder to get up early. Maybe I was just too lazy one day and I preferred the warmth of the bed sheets. For whatever reason, one day I didn't do it. And then one day turned into two, and two into three, and soon my thirty minutes of contemplation were gone and forgotten. Like old shoes or lost memories.
Today I once again remembered. Why did I remember today? I was struggling with pain all night, pain that wouldn't let me sleep. I couldn’t go back to sleep even when I tried with every trick I was aware of, every trick I had been taught.
It then occurred to me that it would a good idea to do that thing I used to do. The pain didn't allow me the easiest route so I had to pick the next option in its place, a route not so easy but full of its own rewards. As simple as that. So unpredictable. So completely beyond my conscious control.
I geared up and went to the balcony like I used to do.
Now the sky had more pinks and oranges than earlier, the darkness had disappeared rather quickly and had left behind a glowing whitish blue that suffused everything with its freshness and light. I heard a bird singing in the distance, I heard the honking of a bus coming from a few blocks away, I heard the tinkling of a little boy's laughter, I heard the murmur of a large sprawling city that was slowly waking up, maybe lost in its own city thoughts, maybe struggling with its own kind of urban pain that forced it to awaken from its concrete slumber even if it would have rather stayed asleep a bit longer, even if it wasn't quite finished with its strange city dreams.
I stood there looking and listening. I noticed my mind getting distracted, a stream of thoughts trying to explain what was happening, what I was trying to do, why I was doing it, how it would happen.
"Focus your mind on what you are seeing, don't worry about your tasks for the day, don't worry about what happened yesterday, don't worry about what will happen tomorrow, just place your mind on this that is in front of you, I just have to remember that one project that is due, I have to remember, I can't allow myself to forget. I just don't have to remember right now, right now I just need to look, look at all of it, but I should make a note, a mental note, but I have to set aside the mental note in order to look, look openly, look without thinking, just remember to get the laundry later, remember later but forget it right now..."
I slowly slid into disappointment. I was disappointed with myself, very disappointed, disappointed because I still remembered, I could still remember what it had been like once. I remembered that I didn’t use to do this before, I remembered that my mind had once been quiet, I remembered that I didn't have this long train of thoughts invading my sacred moments of open perception.
This didn't happen before. I used to contemplate and feel…feel and absorb all the beauty I could take into me, without getting distracted by explanations, without being pulled by responsibilities, without being shaken by running thoughts about obligations and random tasks. I could just sit and look and absorb. I got very disappointed and the dark disappointment just added to my struggles, a speeding downward spiral, a sliding avalanche of negative emotion I couldn't stop or set aside.
I opened my mouth to take a long, deep breath. I went back to a particular memory from my childhood, something I always wished for, something that always made me long to go back, even if it was only to live that one little moment, a tiny scene from a not so pleasant past.
I was probably 10 or 11. My father had promised to take us to the beach the next day, but only if we finished our homework in time. I loved the beach, I was really excited to go, but I had a lot of homework to do and I wasn't sure that I could finish it in time.
I made sure that I got up very early to do my homework before the trip. I jumped out of bed as soon as my eyes opened and I picked up my school notes, ready to start working. The homework was to fill a sheet of paper with the following phrase:
‘The order of the factors doesn’t alter the result’
The teacher wanted us to memorize this by writing it many times on a piece of paper. This was the way we were taught back where I came from. Repetition and repetition and more repetition. Rhythmic cycles of linguistic instruction, calculated to drill thoughts into a young mind overpowered by constant change.
I was getting ready to sit at my desk to do the homework, when I noticed that outside the window there were some extremely beautiful colors, shifting and shining and sliding and twisting just outside the glass.
I got on top of the desk so I could look at them. I stood up on the desk right in front of the window, my eyes wide open, my mind wide open, my attention wide open.
I saw the sky turning from deep black to shining orange and then to bright blue and white… I saw flocks of birds flying by, I heard the noise of some of the people in my house waking up, my father walking to the bathroom and yawning, my mother turning on the stove while whispering to herself. I heard a car passing by with the radio on, I heard distant footsteps coming from a block away, the sound of high heels tapping on cement.
All of it fit in perfectly. Like an enormous jigsaw puzzle made of sound and light, a puzzle I had never before been able to decipher. Everything fit with everything else. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was to be discarded, nothing was to be occluded, nothing was to be set aside.
I saw some black birds flying in perfect formation over the roof of the house across the street, I heard roosters announcing the coming of the brand new day, a new day which I was a part of, a day which I was meant to live.
I was taken away by all this perfectly coordinated beauty for what seemed like forever. I must have stood there on the desk, looking out the window, for at least a couple of hours. And yet it felt like nothing. No struggle, no effort, no pain, no purpose. I had completely lost track of time while I looked out the window, time had ceased to run in the way that I was used to. I forgot where I was or why I was there. I forgot everything except for the beauty that was all around me, the extreme and perfect beauty that surrounded me from all directions, the vibrant breathing beauty that called to me, that made me feel welcome, that made me feel alive.
I found myself standing on the balcony now, trying to do the same thing I had once done so easily, that thing I had done which I never meant to do, that thing which just happened on a morning so long ago.
But I was running into serious difficulty now, I was stumbling and crashing into intangible obstacles. I was having problems with this thing which once had been so simple, problems with something that had once seemed to flow unimpeded, soft and smooth and natural. It was not so easy anymore, not as easy as it once was, not easy at all.
Maybe I thought about it a bit too much, maybe the thoughts of loss were like dark clouds that prevented me from seeing openly. Maybe I had lost the gift of simple observation somewhere along the way and now I couldn't say where or how it had happened.
‘I used to have the experience and not the explanation. Now that I have the explanation I am looking for the experience. I can only find it if I get rid of the explanation that I once worked so hard to find. The experience, the direct experience, just like a child, just like the child I once was…just like the day I was working on my homework and the morning went away in a maze of colors and sound and light… the order of the factors does not alter the results… the order of the factors does not alter the results… it doesn’t matter what comes first, the experience, the explanation…the order of the factors doesn’t alter the results…'
And the morning opened up before me, slowly but surely, while I quietly did my homework, the homework I was finally understanding for the first time, the homework that spoke in a rhythm of simplicity and recurring sonic beats, the homework I still had time to finish.

Rockabye Baby

I heard him from the living room as I was browsing TV listings with a responsive remote, heard the small little gasps he made seeking air to fill his little lungs. By the time I opened the door to his bedroom, the gasps were turning into high pitched wails. I reached into the wooden crib and opened my hands for his little body, bringing him to my chest. I carried him from the room, leaving his brother in the arms of his own dreams in the darkness.
“What’s wrong baby?” I asked with concern, giving his downy covered head a few soft kisses.
In the dim light of the hall, just a few steps from the kitchen, he was not consoled. Wiggling in my arms between gasps for air, his face contorted into a red mess of anger. A sudden fear ran through me, “he’s choking.” I held him upright and patted his back and he cried harder. He wasn’t choking, just mad.
“What’s wrong baby?” I asked with a smile, looking at him.
His face was completely red and his little mouth opened wide with each wail, showing the pink soft gums that would one day house two rows of teeth.
Cradling him in my arms, we went back into his bedroom, I groped around his cradle for the pacifier I expected to find in the left corner. When my hands found nothing, I turned on the light to look again, I still didn’t see it, though I had the memory of his father placing it there earlier. I took a quick look at Noah sleeping in the other crib against the wall, his body in a contorted angle on one side, undisturbed by the noise.
Jonas continued to scream, and we walked back into the hall, taking a few steps to the kitchen. Moving him into another position in my arms, I scanned the kitchen, searching for another pacifier and finding one the side of his automated jumper. I inserted the pacifier into his open, crying mouth, he did not latch on.
I brought him into the living room and sat on the suede couch. I sat him on my lap.
“What’s wrong baby?” I asked smiling at him.
I kissed his head again, feeling the few wisps of his silken hair on my lips. I tried the pacifier again, he didn’t want it.
“What’s wrong baby?”
Not a bit of anger or agitation in my voice, just pure questioning.
“What’s wrong honey?”
I tried holding him in a variety of ways, but nothing seemed soothe him.
Then my eyes fell on the mechanical baby swing by the window. I tried to lower him into the seat, bumping his little head on the three stuffed animals that dangled from the upper plastic arm of the mobile. I realized that his legs couldn’t spread because of the baby suit he was in, it was like a sleeping bag over his legs that snapped at his chest like a vest. I pulled him towards me again, brushing his head against the stuffed hanging animals once more. I let out a little embarrassed laugh and his little face scrunched tighter.
I unsnapped his jumper and then his legs were free, I lowered him into the seat. There was a seatbelt, but I didn’t worry about snapping him in. I sat right in front of him, just inches away and turned on the swing.
“Rockabye baby, on the tree top…”
I held out my two index fingers and he grasped them, holding on tight with his own little fingers. I looked at him, his eyes were still all scrunched up and wet, his mouth was open, showing his red gums.
“when the wind blows, the cradle will rock…”
On the edge of my mind, I remembered the preschool I had worked in for a week, one of the little boys there liked the song, “itsy bitsy spider,” and we sang it to him over and over when he was crying.
“when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.”
I opened my eyes wide as I sang, smiling at him.
After repeating the song several times, insisting on the melody, his crying slowed, then eventually stopped.
He looked at me, with his eyes that were turning from blue to brown. They would open wide as I reached for the high notes with my voice. I pushed on him gently with my fingers even though the machine was rocking him, pushing just a little so he could feel me. He looked at me, seeing me, seeing deeper than what was available in the mirror. I looked into him, seeing beyond the baby, seeing a universe of beings.
“Rockabye baby, on the tree top…”
As I sang, and as his crying became a thing of the past, he would break out into a quick smile every now and then when our contact grew strong, then he would sharply turn his head to the left or the right, grasping for something with his open mouth.
I kept singing, kept looking at him, kept providing a bit of pressure with my fingers as he rocked up and down on the swing. He repeatedly returned my contact, his eyes opening wide from time to time, perhaps seeing sound and feeling color. Between phrases I would purse my lips and blow on him gently, letting my breath move across his soft face.
Experimenting, I stopped singing for a moment. When I did, his body would start to squirm once again, preparing to cry.
“rockabye baby, on the tree top…”
I started to forget the lines, or I was repeating them so much, it seemed like there were lines I had skipped, but I kept going, dropping any armor and image, just giving my rawest self.
Soon, I felt like improvising and started making up another melody. From time to time, I went out of tune, and found it difficult to get back. I kept my eyes open, a smile on my face even when I remembered another me that would care about performance.
But here, with him, my desired image was easily dropped. I felt only love for this being in a little body. We could be together without my human ways, I could give my voice to him, calm him, love him with my most intuitive self.

Intimate Space

I watch with an open mouth. I try to shut my mouth, but it doesn’t seem possible to sit from this balcony’s edge and look onto the yellow and gold light of the stage without wide open lips. It doesn’t feel right to watch with a closed mouth. I note that I’m breathing though my nose and let the jaw hangs as it wants. A part of me keeps pulling my attention to look to the left, looking for a hand, an eye, a sentence whispered. I feel the tide pulling out towards the west, but I follow my mouth and move forward, giving my heart a center seat. I push my body forwards, my body moves north and I follow.

I look from the cellist to the drummer, jump like a pinball of shiny silver attention from the drummer to the guitarist, from the piano to the violin, from the violin to the conductor with cards and a waving baseball hat in his right hand. He puts the card down, picks up another, places the hat on his head. All hands are up, 14 hands. Pointing. A smile from the beaming violinist.

The balcony melts into a garage, we watch their improv session, not a concert, but a group of people playing, laughing, it’s fun and I somehow have a voyeur’s eye into their moment of creation. A few hundred eyes share their intimate space, scrunched tighter than usual, the lights are hot, but it is theirs. A sphere of intense communication, not an eye darts away. They stay together, moving up, where we could go if we keep on working.

My ears hear noise with only an occasional nod towards melody. My eyes see something, translate gesture into music for my slower ears. I coax my mind into relaxing, let it jump from yellow headband to waving hat, a hand over the mic and guttural bursts of energy. 14 instruments, taking turns, jumping, one eye towards the center in camouflage that’s disguised by the stage, one eye moving always around the semi-circle, those ears which remain open, an entire body like a cup full of hot water that remains still without burning. Pointing, the smiles, hands raised, another quick end, then a jump into rhythm.

I watch their eyes, yearn for something like that. They are talking, I can hear their words come out like screams and vibrato. Zorn writes something down on a piece of paper, he closes the cap of his pen. In the back is a man with a glowing Mac, his left hand moves delicately in the air and I hear corresponding sounds move towards us through the speakers. To his right is a balloon. A dark haired man licks the plastic world, I feel his wet tongue and the sex of a man and pink balloon.

They start fast, building into a fever pitch that starts to turn black, then moves towards red but never falls over the edge into green. The vocals, going so rapidly, the vocals, dark screams into a microphone, the smile, so insistent and so close to the floor.

The Dance of Play

There is no right and wrong, just play.

I pick up my magic scepter, a thin green extension of will and mind.It is the instrument of my child, the toy of the girl.It is long and thin, found in the garden by a girl with strawberry-smelling curls and a laugh like wolves.

I dance within the circle, pointing to each member of the orchestra like a conductor in wool pajamas, though no one sees me and no one responds, I point with a smile, cheering them on with my scepter and hips.

Somehow the music found its way in, and I jump and move, half child, half woman, half creature. Half guest. And when I divide like that, the numbers don’t matter, the calculator hangs by a sorry string on a doorknob and I sing out 5,3,8,3,8,7 Hey! And the numbers dwindle in significance, though their accumulation births the thing before you, a woman with white breasts and wide hips and lips verging on pale.

Now, there is only play. And when I slip, I imitate myself in a frenzy, turning the fall of a foot into a wild move. Play. It becomes part of the dance, the un-scripted move; chaotic, controlled, graceful, disjointed. It was all there, moving in a twisting tornado of movement. And the melody kept pumping my heart, cheering those little sock-covered toes. Jumping over wires, missing the flame of a candle, kissing those eyes that found mine, dancing with my green scepter, the pointer of desire, the cane of a vaudevillian, the green finger to the clouds, the channel towards the unknown.

It came though, like a prince from heaven. From a sky that may be underground, or within, or both. The rules are wide, the rules bend like putty and squishy breasts and plastic nipples squeezed between white fingertips.

There is no right, there is no wrong, but there is play.

There are words, there is movement, and sound. And as I move through them, I join the different points with gold and blue threads, using the attention of a woman and the joy of a child. They melt, forming the carpet for your soft white feet, the landing for a prince, the home of the voyager.

Using Time

I smiled as we approached the corner. Ahead of us in the dark night was the circular shaped building I had always wanted to enter. I had seen it years ago, I had watched couples walking towards its wide open doors, I had seen the warm yellow light of the interior cast into the street, the people inside, just beyond the thin window panes. Now I would be that vision for another curious girl, in another car, as she passed down Van Ness on her way towards nowhere. The imposing size of the symphony hall took up a good chunk of the city corner with its massive cement walls and long, rectangular glass windows which offered a fractional slice of its inner vibrancy to the world as a silent gift.
Once inside, we walked up three levels of carpeted stout steps to the outer narrow lobby that wound along the outside of the auditorium. Between the outer lobby and the inner chamber was another narrow curved hallway. Every hundred feet along the interior wall was a door that led to the deep auditorium. On the outer wall were doors that led to the exterior lobby and to the long flight of stairs that would take us to the street. The inner hallway was lit along the outer wall by circular shaped lights that seemed like crystal covered portholes that fragmented the daylight into a kaleidoscope of shapes.
We followed the usher down a row of deep narrow stairs to our seats and I experienced the slightest bit of vertigo as a looked at all the tiered seats below us. The auditorium was arranged like posh rice paddy fields that descended into the wide-open space surrounding a smooth wooden stage with built-in tiers for an absent symphony.
A few rows away I watched two girls approaching and recognized myself…but wasn’t I here? In this chair? “Those girls have my same hair,” I said smiling. “I have no interest in talking about your hair, just be here with me.” I fought back the tears that sprang up, the machine feeling slightly reprimanded. My stomach felt a little queasy. I took a deep breath in, beginning in the stomach and then filling the space of the chest…VAHHHHHHH, my mind said in movement with the breath. KAHHHHHHHHHHH, there was no movement, just the holding of air. When I could not maintain the pressure any longer, I released…DEEEHHHHHHHH. Without anything left, I held and maintained silence within. The murmur of the room was loud. There were words coming from the people behind us, they were loud, their words came in and out without understanding, I recognized the sounds, the words, but I didn’t latch on, they went through me like clouds. VAHHHHHHH, my mind said in movement with the breath. KAHHHHHHHHHHH, there was no movement, just the holding of air. When I could not maintain the pressure any longer, I released…DEEEHHHHHHHH. Without anything left, I held and maintained silence within. The woman in front of me was reading a newspaper, there were photos of a beach. On the tier below us and towards the center of the room, was a man standing by the entrance to the balcony seats. He was wearing a black tuxedo and a bow tie, his hands were clasped in front of him, as though waiting for a command. VAHHHHHHH, my mind said in movement with the breath. KAHHHHHHHHHHH, there was no movement, just the holding of the air. When I could not maintain the pressure any longer, I released…DEEEHHHHHHHH. Without anything left, I held and maintained silence within. Across the space of the great wide auditorium, there was another man, dressed in a similar tuxedo, he stood silhouetted against the illuminated rectangle behind him, the open door. VAHHHHHHH, my mind said in movement with the breath. KAHHHHHHHHHHH, there was no movement, just the holding of the air. When I could not maintain the pressure any longer, I released…DEEEHHHHHHHH. Without anything left, I held and maintained silence within.
There was a pretty girl with long hair several rows down, a man with a pony tail just a few seats from me on the left…he reminded me of someone, but his beard was much too trim to be an exact match. The voices behind us peaked into a raucous chorus of laughter. Then the lights dimmed and the room was full of applause as a man in a suit introduced the three band members of the quartet. As the applause peaked with enthusiasm at what was coming, a man stepped onto the wooden stage. He was thin, slightly frail, in a suit that, from our distance, looked maroon. The musicians gathered in their appointed positions. The young drummer went to a slightly raised platform and sat on his stool, gathering the two wooden sticks in his hand. The guitarist nestled his instrument on his lap and beneath his arm and found a comfortable place on a tall stool. He reclined against it, not exactly sitting. One of his feet remained on the stage, the other balanced on the rung of the metal stool. The bassist stood behind his instrument, he put his arms around it, about to dance, about to show her a good time. He was ready, in his black pants and collared black shirt with the top two buttons undone. And then the man in front, the man described to me as a living legend, a demigod among the mortals. He stood closer to us than the rest, just a few feet in front of the bassist and guitarist who stood across from each other, the drummer was a few steps back but centered. The four of them made the shape of a square cross.
The man in front picked up his saxophone, beside him was a trumpet and violin. This was Ornette Coleman. There was silence as the applause died. The men on the stage held the silence with us as well, then burst into a frantic bout of noise. I was immediately lost. The sounds seemed to slap me in the face, moving fast, repeatedly, hitting me again on the other side before I had time to completely fall over. It felt like a storm. A big messy storm. I heard my brain say that I couldn’t hear them. I wondered if it was the room, but wasn’t it designed with acoustics in mind? Was it me? The CD I heard earlier in the day sounded clearer…I thought of my mother saying there were better Italian restaurants in LA after she returned from Italy. The piece abruptly ended and I clapped along with everyone else. The second piece began more slowly, a little more moody and seductive. I focused on the drummer, then closed my eyes to try and hear him moving with the other three.
I opened my eyes, I looked slightly to the right and saw him holding her hand. Immediately my body tensed. He was not touching me. I let the breath come into me slowly. NO, No. Do not fuck this up. Breathe. Pay attention to the music. The sound of the saxophone was high, seeming to screech. I closed my eyes. I listened. Yes. The bass. I like the bass. I tuned in. Song after song passed. Then I noticed that his hand was on her knee. His other hand rested on his left knee. I brought my knees closer, I tried to position myself close to him, so that his hand would come casually to mine, but it did not. When the song ended, he leaned over with a smile and gave me a kiss. I smiled, wondering if my eyes revealed my thoughts.
I watched the drummer, whose shirt was showing signs of dampness. He was a monster, tapping, moving, striking, there was so much variance, then I listened to the bass, I tried to hear it, I closed my eyes and tried to find it through the melody and the violin and the drums. But then I looked over at her knee, and I saw his hand there. “I just cannot do this. He really does love her more. He really does. I never spend the night, and he loves her more. It is always like this. Always. Oh my god. Ok.” I let out a sigh. A tear began to form on my right eye. I took a long deep breath, I felt my chest. “May the result of this small sacrifice be for the benefit of all beings everywhere.”
BAIIIoooooo….Ornette called me back with his saxophone. Come back, listen to me. I closed my eyes, I listened. It got deeper. I felt sleep tugging at me and I fell deeper into the sounds. It seemed to get louder. Was it me? The song ended and he leaned in again and gave me a kiss. His smile was bright, he was having a good time. But why wouldn’t he touch my leg? “He really loves her more. It is just so simple.” A long deep sigh. The drums…the bass…his hand on her knee. I looked at the filled seats around me, the bodies, the shape of the theater. I felt myself in the auditorium. I felt myself as a body. “Do you always want to be like this? Do you want to remain trapped in this body, in this realm? In this fucked up mantram that cannot let you pay attention to the music?” I didn’t. I knew that. Each one of these thoughts was the jealous machine that just couldn’t believe it was loved despite its foibles. I closed my eyes again. My head was moving. I realized I was bobbing to the beat of the bass… was that right? I wondered if I did this often, I wondered if the drummer had his own rhythm, if there were multiple beats to bob to. My head moved and I heard the screech of the violin enter. I tried to listen to the melody of the guitar, but it seemed the most buried. Then there was a fast little melody of the saxophone, then the response of the guitar, only slightly higher, then the response again of the saxophone, now higher than the guitar, it went higher and higher three times. I smiled, hearing it, happy that I had. “His hand, her knee.”
And then the three musicians quieted slightly while the guitar rose. I heard him clearly. Then the guitar faded while the bass became the center of attention. “Oh no. It’s over. It’s ending. I spent so much time begin jealous, I didn’t spend enough time listening. This little life is over. I wasted so much of it. I am here in this auditorium, I am here, in this body, I couldn’t focus on what was here, I spent so much time focusing on what was not happening. What I wanted, what was being fulfilled, what wasn’t. I wasted the life. If I don’t stop the habit, I will really be looking back, if I am lucky, sixty years from today, thinking the same thing.”
And then it was over. The lights came on and we walked out into the cold air of the night, staring from the balcony to the lighted citadel on top of the capitol building.

Consequences

It was late at night and it was very dark. The clouds were hidden behind a thick layer of fog and the world moved around her in only three colors: black, gray and white. The roads were nearly deserted, just a bus with its hazard lights on blinked quietly as she passed. And she drove on, driving up the twisted road that skirted like an asphalt snake along the edge of San Bruno mountain, her car’s headlights outlining the bulbous forms of gray clouds that enveloped her like a hungry ghost made of mist and sheets of moisture. There was a musical piece on the radio, an electronic composition without words that seemed so tender, coming right from the unknown heart of its creator and entering hers with an unrelenting curiosity to see what lay open in the late hour. Small tears pricked her eyes as she reached the crest of the hill. The music was too beautiful, how could something like this arrive to fit the moment so well? This was music for the tender dark hours, when night and day blend into one. When the sleeping and the awakened dance between clouds of fog and pull dreams from the void. The music held her, as though the notes themselves were made to caress her curvaceous tears, as though the notes knew why she would cry and they pulled the tears out with a little more force, taking her with them on their voyage through time. As the road flattened out, she suddenly realized she might never know the composer, another song would come on and the beauty of what she had just heard would remain forever in her memory, encapsulating the moment like a dream. Someone, somewhere had made this music, and that person would never know that now, there was a girl driving in a small black truck in the middle of the night, going home. She could never tell them that the notes cast themselves around her like a magic circle, holding her as no other piece of music could. It was made for this. It was this. She was that, and it was her. It took her hand and led her down a psychedelic road where owls feed and coyotes sometimes wander. It held her in its palm, a loving teacher that pulled on her metal gates just a little more. “Open up,” it said. And whoever made this piece…they would never know. What were they doing right now? Sleeping? Eating? Working? Making love? The infinite consequences of their creation were unknowable. Once born, the creation had its own life, moving through time, radio, stereos, ears…moving into and out of perception…being heard by some, being shut off by others. Were there others crying? Others dancing? A thousand ways this piece could go…its creator would never know.
The consequences of what we create are unknowable. We create for the sake of creating, we do for the sake of doing, and then, it is sent, it goes out into the world, drifting like a carefully constructed leaf in the wind. Will someone catch it? Will it go straight to the sea, straight to the blue waves that will swallow up the orange and yellow and green? Or maybe it will drift to land with the high tide, and perhaps a little girl will pluck it from the ocean foam. And maybe it will end up in her collage of thoughts and dreams and her memory of changing seasons. There is just no way to tell what will happen, so we just let them go. Just as we were once let go, like tears already dispersing into the fog before the song that provoked them has come to an end, like ribbons of stardust dancing in the bottomless void of the infinite night.

Music For The First Time

When was the last time you heard music for the first time? The notes from an old David Bowie song jump from the steel guitar strings, they rush through the air, vibrating moments apart from each other, they leap into the ears of a toddler running by. The men stand on a street that’s crowded with vendors selling the first strawberries of spring and the remnants of a short winter’s harvest. A toddler waddles by, she runs past the music and then two feet past, she stops abruptly and turns once to the right, then to the left, as though trying to identify something, looking for something she saw or felt on the edges of her consciousness. She stands still for two seconds, then turns around and runs back to the musicians, to the source of the music that fills the street. She stands still in front of them, like a small mortal at the feet of giants that reverberate in the world of sound. She stares at them, without a smile, without an indication of joy or fear, just an open mouthed stare that borders on disbelief, as though she is trying to understand her perception. I look past her and see a middle aged man sitting on the warm asphalt with two small children in his lap, their attention focused on the musicians. Is this the first time they’ve heard the orchestrated notes of a Bowie song? The first time this particular arrangement of seven notes has run through their ears? They come towards the music like strange worshipers to a stone covered in undecipherable marks. Unsure and curious. Like a vibrational comet, they fall towards the closest source of sound. They can always find an airplane in the sky or point to a pinecone perched on a table full of soap and incense. A little baby stares with wide eyes at the singing face in front of her. Her big hazel eyes take it all in, watching everything. I wonder how she senses each note. Is it a pure sensation, like touching snow? Does she see it though a lense of color and sparkles, not just hearing, but seeing the music that moves around her like a breathing story? The crowd moves past her, adults with bags full of ripe produce, ten year old children that care more for their ice cream cones than the two buskers under the full sun, children that have already begun to watch the magic drain from their bodies like bubbles from a bath swirling down the drain. The baby is in her father’s arms, she points to the music over his shoulder, but he is busy talking to an older woman in a stylish jacket, he doesn’t see her tiny hand rise up in a tight fist, she jerks it in the air, as though pounding a drum and then opens her little hand, pointing to the musicians. She stares at them, fascinated, captivated. Suddenly, she looks away. Something has broken the spell. Sooner or later, something always does.

Survivor

Tears come easily, like water from the suburban tap, just lift the handle, just sing the song. It’s a pretty melody with a tribal beat and a chorus of strong, pretty women chanting in unison, and their energy, recorded long ago, exploited for years, it comes through me like the dagger of something real. Raw emotion, communicated through melody, told lovingly by thick voices heard with a ripped heart. It moves through me, in through my ears, down to my chest, out my eyes, along the edges of my skin. The colors flash by and I know I must use it, to do anything else is neglect. Precious and fleeting, it cannot be bottled, but it can be channeled, funneled into writing, pushed in and moved around and reconfigured into a human language made of numbers. I grab a hold of the moment, unwilling to let it die beneath the florescent lighting, unwilling to let it evaporate in the night or absorbed into another bite of cake that coats me like a blanket of fog. No, the moment moves like a soft wind, easy to feel and enjoy, easy to dance within, and easily forgotten as a new thought immerges on the fringes of my mind. Is the training taking root? Has some small piece been remembered, internalized, a step towards a second nature…I wish for this. This evening, it can be blamed or accounted for, on hormones and built up forces of primal sex that have yet to spill, and now, I rush towards the tide. The waters come and I fling myself towards the white foam naked and hungry. My ass jiggles with each step on the beach, each narrow print is a plunge into the earth, a temporal dent of existence. Does the womb remember my birth? The people of stone push back and I stay above the crust’s edge. I run naked, covered in the salt of waves and the hope of a virgin. Thick clumps of matted brown hair cling in streaks to my pink cheeks and thin neck, my hammer is by the fire, and the smoke rises behind me like a signal to all those that can see and the very few answer back in thunder and small sparks. Black wisps turn into colored messages, delivering them to the beauty that rests on his bed. Does the conch cry for me? Do the lips that press against it know the value of its sound? The mermaids will be arriving soon, in time for tepid tea and limp cookies and wet kisses from a devoted mouth. On the waves of the coming storm they come, in the arms of dark clouds and hanging on to the earlobes of mighty tritons that tower beyond the clouds. I run towards them, to the crashing black waves, to the shells that rain like pointed drops of hardened semen. The desire for life scrapes across my skin, leaving streaks upon my arms. My breasts are painted in lines of blood, my hips are etched with the marks of their descent. I feel each stinging line as it comes, it enters, it crosses, it falls to the sand. I feel it as I run and I notice it all, the sand which enters between the gaps of my toes, a cool wind nearly pushes me back, but I charge forward again, and here… they come, my ass jiggles as I run. The necklace bounces on my neck as the teeth and shells that conform it clink against in a music of escape, the feathers in my hair dart back and forth in geometric patterns on an invisible canvas. They arrive and the tea is poured, the cakes wait for their mouths, my breasts await their curious hands, my ass hopes for the tritons sword. They come on the blackened waves, they come with the salty tears upon the cheeks of a round mother, it comes with a song, a simple melody that ignites fires among the waves, they surround us, holding the energy in place, and the song crashes towards me with the shell soaked wind.

Fast Edits

The car is vibrating softly, a muted whhhrrrr fills the small cab as the seat jostles my thighs. The motor runs and I wait in the bright light of mid morning. I am surrounded on both sides of the street by nearly identical three story apartment buildings. Their colors vary…cream, pale blue, golden yellow, white, brown, and so do the materials that compose the sparse balconies, stucco, metal, wood. While I wait, I try to look for other architectural features that diversify the cookie-cutter construction, but the diversity comes from the occupants, not the builders. There are a cluster of satellite dishes clinging to a wooden balcony. A large blanket dries over its edge, painted in the bright colors of a peacock. Telephone poles line the street, an abundance of thick, black wires come from each one like an electric waterfall of plastic tubes. Pigeons line the wires, pigeons perch comfortably on the rooftops, pigeons fly above, coasting low to pick up pieces of food, then back up high, back to the flock. I have sat with this view, with this eternal, unchanging street many times. Usually I sit in silence, preparing for the force about to arrive, but today, I turn on the tiny white Ipod and put on the good morning song, a musical piece of beats and electronic rhythms that always sound so, so good in the morning, when the light is bright and the possibilities of a new day are still silver in their whispered promises.
And the beat starts, the delay of an engine roars into the soundscape…then creeps in the steady boom of bass. A car crosses my line of vision at 25mph, it matches the tempo perfectly. A handful of pigeons take flight and my eyes go to them and then my eyes move back to the perpendicular street ahead of me and another car paints the street red just as the music hits an extended delay and then the beat starts in a little faster and my eyes dart to a patch of grass…my eyes move with the rhythm…a gated door…a window… a man on a telephone… a car goes…one, two, three beats. My eyes conspire with the song, editing the neighborhood in fast cuts and smooth delays. fffuuahhhh, a blue car goes by, precisely when it is needed, the birds take flight again, just as the song begins it crescendo and then I look to the ground, to the birds, to the wires, here comes another car and I hold the stare for 2 beats, then bam, bam, bam, my eyes dart again for every beat…one, the road, two, the pigeons, three, the grass…door, man, balcony, laundry on the line, faded stucco, a trash can on the street, a woman pushing a baby…tap, tap, tap…my eyes continue their edit…..fffuuuuuuu….a blue SUV passes by…tap, tap, tap, tap…the sculpted cypresses of the cemetery, tap, tap, tap…the wire fence, gravestone in the distance, street, pigeon, the elements cycle and the song continues, beautiful in its collaboration with the entire Universe around it.

To A Crisp

I am the baked chicken, my skin is brown, almost golden in its heated hue. I’ve been baking for hours, though it feels like years. The recipe is on the marble counter. Oil spots and a thin coating of flour soil the edges of the paper. I glow in the florescent light, green seasoning and dots of pepper decorate my skin. I’m pretty enough for a cooking show and soon, the guests will arrive, marveling at my color and crispy skin. With mouths watering, they will compliment the chef, job well done! "She looks perfect," they say, "the crispy skin is sure to be delicious."
For a moment, before the show continues, a slight tear in the crispy skin opens. After a fleeting moment of music and sound, when voices open and move without fear, without the barriers of control and doubt, the white flesh is exposed. Juicy and white, tender as the moment of birth, the insides are naked, open to all that have the eyes to look, and they are few. The salty tears come without anticipation or explanation, for the moment, without hesitation, the body opens wide.
In this moment, I know clearly why I am here. Why I beat this drum, why I sing this sustained note. This is beauty. This is raw and dark and light and the strength of time moving through us. Through the tear, the world comes through. Through the tear, the whitest of light seeps out and meets the deepest of blacks. In the bed of sounds, the piano cradles the drum, the fork finds his lover, the chandelier. The tears well as the cymbal is hit, lightly and unafraid. Harder, harder, there is no hesitation, there is no wrong, there is no right. It is. It simply is, now. This sound, this symphony.
There is no show, there is no skin, there is no crispy barrier protecting me from the watery-mouthed watchers or hungry guests. There is no secret, there is no skin, there is no me. The brittle design has been cut in half, and I find myself here, beating a bass. Through the opening in the candy coated shell, you find your way in, building the wooden bridge that connects one universe to another. When the tear is repaired, when the authorities are alerted of the breach and the hungry guests demand their dinner, hopefully the bridge will remain, just large enough for the Unknown to find its way inside and for me, to search for a way out.