the winter blows in
A rustle of the freshly dead leaves, and a slight chill up your slinking spine, the mother frost is upon us and she's landing gently before she breaks. The kids are still playing out-side though our days, by definition, cease before rush hour, when everyone begins their real day. When we all go home.
Brooklyn spans for what seems like an infinity to one who had never lived in concrete playgrounds before transplanting to new york. Brooklyn runs deep, in years, miles, cultures. Brooklyn runs deep man, and Brooklyn has not it's own soul, but the collective conscious pulse of millions, millions who are not natives, and who have yet to imprint their feel on this American soul. Brooklyn is the Puerto Ricans, the African Americans, the chassid jews, the polish mothers, the dwindling tree-lined streets, the abandoned prisons, petty thieves or saviors disguised by second language or shabby attire, the lonely-long dry-community pool, the dollar bargain on every corner, the FBI jacket dance into the nights, the fire hydrant waterfalls, the graffiti on a cold-hard-fast-transitory building where people live inside and call it home. And then call each other on their cell phones, and pagers, and nine million foot high satellites to keep us all connected in these places we call home. We're all keeping connected man, but I have yet to know my neighbors.
Brooklyn is a fat lip to it's hard fist.... Fat, proud, and true.
Brooklyn, man. Brooklyn.
So, my home. I have accepted home here, in this squat that has all the luxuries a a young-attractive-intelligent-creative-twenty something person should want. But it still doesn't have jambalaya, my mamma, my siblings, and the bartender friend who knows your drink, and your mood accordingly. The porches here are cold and angular, they just aren't the same as the the shanty-shotgun-creole porches at home, adorned with acquired "antiques", rocking chairs, and a little old lady/man to watch over the neighborhood from this crumbling throne.
My my Brooklyn is lonely this time of year. I've been counting my blessings, friends, and possibilities. They measure up to more than enough, but it's lonely none the less. I'll blame it on the weather.
Though at this point, I have come to welcome such lonely disaffection with open arms. Because it, above all else, is the catalyst for change and progress that one-self left to their own devices, never would have figured out. So, this imposed state is the boot-camp sergeant, and me, a malleable, attentive devotee to truth and pursuit. Ready for my work out. Ready for what's to come. However strenuous or exhausting it may be. And it will be that, and more.
The good word. The good sound. The good vision. It comes only with much patience and pursuit. To quietly remove yourself from the world around you, just to be a silent observer can be so heartbreakingly beautiful, to this day, I am still amazed by the most simple things. The kids playing ball in the street with their star-lined eyes and easy hearts. The small-slow-moving Latino man who always has a smoke in his hand, and who sits on the sidewalk with nothing to occupy him. he just watches everyone go by, and he looks so fucking happy. we say hello. and he says "hello, sweetie, baby, honey" in that order. Every single time. As many pet names as he can conjure up in a broken spanish accent. And this is highly endearing.
I've been seeing God in the perversions, and perversions in the God. An indicated that this is all connected, as was suspect. That there is not good or bad, black or white, there is merely perception. And for those with perception omnipotent enough, the world unravels all it's gems and glories. A flooding rainbow of touch and smell, sight and color, a parade of the most beautiful.
I just recalled these visions of cities that don't exist and experiences I've never had. It was a monstrous concrete place with no resemblance to anything I have ever seen. The buildings were lush extravaganzas, opulent plush concrete palaces to the sky. There was no regard to gravity or the confines of acceptable behavior or movement. There were cities within cities, and one turn could lead you into new dimensions. There were couches in the sky, and places of dwelling that felt suitable.
These places are so vivid, and yet they don't exist at all, atleast not in this plane. I have been lost for quite some time, and I hope to come back around soon. While the opulent visions are charming, the warmth, blood, and bone of loved ones is ten-fold as wondrous.
If only I can melt my winter heart.
posted by kristin diable | 6:07 PM
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