29 April 2008
Patchwork Writing: SHE
)Published on April 29th, 2008 @ 08:40:45 pm, using 1161 words, 262 views
She’s the girl who’s always rushing. (It was said again the other day amidst heartfelt laughs.) She’s aware of it on days she musters enough attention to pay.
Rush…
Hurry – Dash
Hurry…
Rush – Dash
Dash…
Rush – Hurry
:D
There are the people who pay attention and those who don’t. There are days when attention is easy to control and others when it’s simply unruly like a mob of 5-year-old boys. And always infinity nestled in between.
Most days, her routine-based days, are of the mindless striding variety. Highlighted by an uncompromised pace - an uncompromisable pace. An aversion to the here and now like it’s missing a limb. Like it bridges right into nothing by way of a narrow structure that somewhere along the way reveals to you it’s a diving board. Like it hangs somewhere over the ocean - too far (for comfort) from terra firma to show you a way back, if need be. A structure that can only get you halfway to wherever it proposes to take you (and where’s the courage to take the plunge from one?)
She, with the color fragrances…
…the green tea, the white musk, the lavender.
On the subway platform that keeps her still for a few minutes on those routine-based days, classical music echoes of Merchant Ivory.
She’s nice to people she shouldn’t even be cordial to, because eventually most things become water under the bridge. When the spark finds the end of the fuse, however, which is short to begin with, she’ll say things she’ll regret.
She’s both fiery and watery.
She considers goodness. The word.
She wonders where goodness comes from and where it goes in certain people and how far below the surface it hides and how it manages to surface when you least expect it. She thinks of The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) a movie she saw a while back and was impressed by. The idea of good remaining underground for so long, hidden for the sake of the disparity between it and the world around. She’s always been a sucker for stories that follow a trail of unsupressable goodness, be it humble, blithe or grumpy, culminating in a moment of acknowledgment and appreciation. She’ll shed easy tears over maudlin moments arrived at through that route. Mr. Holland’s Opus, Dead Poets Society… a German, restrained and subtle The Lives of Others.
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
Dead Poets Society
She needs to be scratched in order to be seen. She happens below the surface. She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve. She doesn’t wear it at all. She uses it and keeps it out of sight, where it was placed and where she believes it’s meant to be. She looks out her window. Daily and quietly (once the routine draws to a close and the mindless pace is allowed to subside.) Takes it all in. All of it, without calling a moment of attention to herself.
She manages to be well-liked and fun to be around, but it’s her own little world she prefers. When there’s no one else around save the chosen few and their blending presence. The taste of coffee or tea in her mouth, the inviting sounds of a screening room where the lights have just gone out but the doors have yet to be closed and scattered peripheral unintelligible voices rising and falling nearby.
Once, an asterisk sitting on a page seen only peripherally became a spider.
She’s often that misunderstood asterisk. Not quite seen as she is. Resculpted by each half-attentive gaze.
It’s hard to predict what she’ll like and what she won’t… but she loves this strange mix, the perfect balance between noise and quiet she finds in this place. The black and whiteness amidst the warm colors, the stairs, the panel of monitors, the posters, the oddly-shaped, curved and angular bench, the gift shop, the whisks on the menu and the menu itself. She could live here. Plus, she’d like to try the salmon quiche sometime.
She’s the girl highlighting a book that’s upside down. That makes sense to her. She’s the girl staring down in wonder at her own pink toe partially coated with a metallic gray. This thing called M. Butterfly. This opera liquefied into a bottle. This all makes sense. The people who named it perhaps the same people who named Blue Ruin - Clementine’s hair dye in Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, it occurs to her. Thoughts occur to her by the second and by the thousands. Actual events do so but with lax frequency.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
She’s the girl who sees someone mouthing words from a distance and turns around to see if someone else is standing behind her. Things are rarely meant for her.
There are things she knows and things she doesn’t. Sometimes the things she knows become the very things she doesn’t. And the things she doesn’t the very things she knows. Certainty is a watery something subject to different temperatures. Just as it turns into thick ice and feels solid beneath your feet, it can melt away and carry you down the most dangerous of rapids.
She likes what’s cold and solid. She likes the low temperatures, the low profiles, encouraging others to have low expectations of her so that she can make the most out of the element of surprise. She’s a watery creature herself, in that sense - going from an old woman to a 5-year-old in the blink of an eye.
She thinks he’ll get trampled on, this man with the unaccounted for smile on his face. So she does the opposite. New Yorker-ly. She doesn’t smile freely, except to babies (most of the time) and to dogs (without fail). ‘How many people has that repressed smile kept away?’ she wonders. ‘How many people have thought twice before reaching out to her? How many people has she turned into ants? How many conversations have gone un-had?’
Oh, well.
There goes a toddler. Heavy years away from becoming the free-smiling man. Both still learning to walk. The miniature person, stumbling beautifully. Arm stretched upwards as far as it can, to reach an adult hand. She is still learning to walk herself. Over 30 years of a journey under her belt, on this conveyor belt of a life and still so much to be learned. Choosing the right steps. Placing those on the appropriate places. (♫ …a foot in the appropriate place… ♪ - DR) Pretending it’s effortless by now but in truth, faltering… stumbling… remarkably.
Morcheeba - Trigger Hippie/Who can you trust?
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Patchwork, writing, she, green tea, white musk, lavender, goodness, smile
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