tuesday

On the Age of Glass

This morning, for it is dawn, though not in this city and not in this instance, I finished the History of Love. There was a time when I stopped believing in modern fiction, for it did not move me, as much as I tried to move it. I was prideful in taking what was not mine from books that were not written for me (though at first, I imagined they were). And so I changed. It was in the emptiest of books that I found humbleness to seek, virtue to emulate, and wisdom deeper than the lines of any face. I looked into the hands of those who had written words and saw a reflection of the sea, though I wanted to see myself (and never did). I would sit in chairs and read and think of those who had written words, and where they might have written them. It did not matter where. The hope that the strings of my heart could be plucked in new ways was enough to discard the history and hold inside of me what remained. And so I finished the History of Love. And I found myself inside of words that were not mine, and people I thought I could be someday, if given enough time, enough rain to wet my hair, enough distance from the reality of my face and of my heart. I thought, no paper spine can change me; it is only through the linked connection of my eyes and words that the concrete disappears and the abstract, the invisible and pure can overwhelm and inundate and change. I thought, in my bed, warm air pushing into my sides through my closed blinds blocking the winter light, I can be changed. It is possible that I won’t. That I may break and shatter like the glass bottles guarding my books on my shelf. But there is the possibility for transformation; for a new version of myself to emerge inside of what feels a murky lack of distinction. And yet. There are a thousand words in those two words, “and yet.” And I should like to live inside of those two words and walk away, changed, but only slightly; the happiest and the saddest I have ever been, my skin one shade darker, my eyes that much heavier, my hair that second longer. Arthur Rimbaud writes of Illuminations, of visionaries, and “tortures that laugh in the terrible surge of their silence.” Perhaps, the Book holds not the opportunity to transform and change, but to illuminate the very things that are already inside of us, the very strings within us we feel tremble when we hear beautiful music or make contact with a charming pair of clever eyes, the laughter that builds within us when we allow our feet to truly dance. Those feelings when they strike us, however old, however new, should be enough. Enough, at times, meaning, “the whole world.” At other times meaning, “this very moment in time that I am standing next to you with our shoulders touching.” And even, “knowing that this exists and that I may find it.”

friday

Mysterious things are happening. For the past eleven days, I have repeatedly experienced tiny electric shocks. This has happened when I knock my knuckle against a light switch, when I shake hands with someone new, when my hand pulls a warm pie out of the oven and I see silver confetti bloom. I receive these minor thrills perhaps fifteen to thirty times a day, and have for the past fortnight. It seems such a lovely thing, I'm afraid for it to stop.

Ten, eight, or perhaps six days following an earthquake, a pair of green or gray or hazel (it depends who you are, how I feel, and on which way the light bends) searches the faces of the figures folding over coffee cups and blue screens. I pause, my index finger temporarily curled inside of my book, marking my place on page sixteen, as I feel the ground tremble through my feet. Instead of fear, laughter seems to be bubbling in my throat and a loose chuckle falls out of my mouth. I laugh at the most inappropriate moments (to the chagrin of some). For an instant, I consider asking the man painting the wall next to me if he keeps feeling multiple earthquakes (this was at twelve or thirteen), before I realize everyone else is sitting still, heads bowed before hot lattes and free wi-fi. They look normal, too normal to have gone through thirteen minute earthquakes. I leave before I can prove myself right, satisfied believing that I was sitting on top of a fault line in the corner of a coffee shop for half of an afternoon. Often, I prefer my version of the truth, for reality lacks the familiar gestures of imagination.

thursday

THINGS HANDS DO

There are many reasons why Agnès Varda is my favorite director. This is only one.

saturday

The cinema is to see with new eyes. To walk out and leave unchanged, to withdraw without partaking in some transformation is either a proclamation of the absence of spirit, or the denial of movement (forever toward progress). Sixty seconds after a clock struck ten o'clock, I lost the familiar sound of my father and my mother's voice. My father, at an indeterminable time slid a brass key into a keyhole, turned on the engine with a slight of hand, and the car began to breathe. As the motor moved and the mouths of my parents opened and closed without making a sound, I saw this tirelessly familiar world differently. The world had not changed (as it rarely does), yet perhaps the curve of my eye refracted in the winter light, allowing me to pause all of the harsh movements of the earth and see the dreams I have so long imagined begin to form, if only for an instant.