Saturday, June 17, 2006
1.00am
So this one's from bed, because I'm braver at night. Epiphanies at bedtime.
I've wanted to write this one for a while now. But it keeps escaping from me. Or I lack the courage. I'm lazy. If I'm slack for much longer, it'll slip from me completely (like so many others have).
Have you ever picked up an old cd, an old favourite, that you haven't listened to in a while, and put it on to relive your past?
Have you ever felt that warmth...
that heartbreaking ache...
that connection...
that familiarity,
tickle you all over?
Engulf you?
It's time travel.
And it's not unlike reuniting with an ex-love...
You wonder what happened. How could so much good have been left behind and forgotten? How could such chemistry, such mutual understanding, be ruptured? And you don't want to remember,
because right now,
it just feels so good and so right.
I am re-reading (possible my all-time favourite book) The Last Magician, by Janette Turner Hospital. I bought this book on a whim. I'm vain. I had flipped through it at the bookstore and had seen that one of the characters have the same name as me. At the time, I was depressed, I was working a lot and so making much more money than I could spend. Buying books and cds made me feel good. Temporarily, anyway...
I remember that the first few times I tried to read it, I gave up before finishing the first chapter (only about ten pages). I tried reading that chapter at least three times before finally giving up and resigning the book to the boxes under my bed.
I guess I must've run out of things to read. When I picked it up again, it was just as confusing, just as hard to read. I had no idea what was going on and who was who. And yet, for some reason, I persisted. I distinctly remember reading this one bit in the book which finally hit a chord with something inside myself. It struck me as so familiar and so accurate a description of how I felt that I just had to talk to someone about it. I remember messaging my friend, asking for total honesty, "do you think I'm weird?"
What I had wanted to know, was whether or not I was exceptional. Was the author simply describing a well-known, everyday condition of humanity, or was I special? And someone understood me..? Finally.
That's what music does, doesn't it? You hear a song, you might like it cos it has a good beat, great guitar rifts, or the singer a great voice, whatever...
but the ones you love,
the favourites,
are always ones that make you say:
"Yes!! That's exactly how it feels, that's exactly how I feel, or how it should feel, and someone else, understands..."
What a relief.
The fact is, I'm not exceptional. But I'm special. I love this book because I realised that it took a lot of hard work to uncover its secrets, its complexity. And now that I know it, like an old friend, I can enjoy it even more, knowing exactly what to expect, and yet, finding always, always, something new to love about it..
~.~
I've been listening to a lot of old favourites...
and lots of new stuff
fast becoming favourites...
it all merges into one big blob in my head
or maybe my heart
I dunno
and I just remember things...
it's almost painful,
almost cruel,
the vividness of these memories
and the way time plays tricks on us..
"linear time is something invented by hollywood, and before that 19th century fiction..."
something like that
surprisingly, I can't find th page where the quote is..
"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future. And time furture contained in time past."
That one I will always remember.
ts eliot and the quink
what a combination!
or how many cats will i meet over a lifetime?
how many black cats?
"midnight blacks and midnight blues
still haunt me with memories..."
hmmmm.....
