I wrote this in my journal while I was sitting by myself on a bench on the promenade by the water tonight. It's a lot easier for me to actually write than to type sometimes. Annnd I haven't written in a while, so here we go.
i just noticed that i've never actually dated any entries in here. maybe because i never wanted anyone to think of it as a diary and be nosy enough to read it.
the city looks a lot different-"a lot different"-what the heck is that? ok it looks really different when i take my glasses off. it's hazy and mysterious and sort of like how christmas tree lights are when you try to take a picture in front of a christmas tree-the picture turns out ok-faces in tact, but the lights never appear to be little contained bulbs of light. instead they run and drip and sneak across the picture in a trail of haze, of glazed, stained light. that's the city to me right now with my less than 20/20 vision. hazy, soft and without its harsh angles and the singularity of every rectangular window spitting its singular polygon of light into my mind's eye.
One of the most beautiful things without my glasses through are people. the couples sitting together on benches, one arm over the other--but i don't know whose arm. all of their shapes blurring and slipping together. and yet.
and yet when i hear their voices the haze disappears. their voices are pointed, direct, resonant and clear. it's as if their sounds are hitting the front of their teeth and tongue and flipped and molded into words and syllables that flow out of their mouths into a megaphone of air and into some direct current which flows down down down into my eardrums. i adore voice.
there is a blur of a man sitting caddy-cornered from me whose voice sounds like a sputtering flow of water from a hose-blubbering spatting, hitting kinks and stops and then rolling freely into the ground, splashing everyone with his sound. he talks of business in his russian accent.
i am sitting alone on this bench and i hope desperately that no creepster sits down beside me. and yet at the same time in the shmucky hopeless romantic corner of my mind i wish that someone maybe a few seats away was falling in love with me. its creepy and crazy and idealistic i know. and come to think of it, i actually don't think that i would want someone to fall in love with me that way-i mean how could they? they don't know me, i don't know them-for all i know i'm just this bookish redheaded elizabeth bennett wanna-be figment of their imagination that they've seen and imagined that i take old photographs and drink orange tea and eat macadamia nut cookies and like to read tom sawyer and can make a mean pumpkin pie with lots of nutmeg. all of which would be complete figments of their imagination that they've decided to takc on "the girl on the bench" who would not fit any of those dimensions at all.
so...don't fall in love with me on a park bench because i can't cook pumpkin pie. and i'll just not fall in love with the next bearded plaid-shirt-wearing laughing guy i see. fair? sure, fair.
sometimes, like right now i wish i had meg ryan's voice so that i could inwardly narrate all of this little visit to the promenade. well suck it meg ryan--you're like 50 and in my imagination you can narrate and i'll find my own Harry Burns. But Harry meets Jessika doesn't sound nearly as bouncy and upbeat as Harry met Sally. Harry met Jessika would probably end up in an awkward break up where Jessika would be the name of the awkward ex in the prequel to "When Harry Met Sally". I'm better off. Besides the named Harry reminds me of a stuffed bear.
I have seriously gone into Bridget Jones' Diary mode. My hand won't stop. Oh God. That was definitely a Bridget moment because i thought about writing 'Oh God' before i actually wrote it which means it's time to cap the pen and go home.
annd memorize a monologue for betsys class and analyze a scene and it's almost 10pm. heavens.
life is beautiful"
as you can see, the promenade makes me a ramblin hopeless romantic mushy mush mush. whatevs
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3 comments:
Have you heard of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor who wrote the current bestseller "My Stroke of Insight"? Taylor was a Harvard trained brain scientist who suffered a massive stroke. I don't think we'll ever hear a story like this - Taylor understands how the brain functions and she was able to observe her mind deteriorating. She writes about the euphoric nirvana and a sense of complete peace and well-being she discovered in her stroke and she talks about this in her incredible (don't miss it) talk on TED.com. In the book, Taylor explains how to 'step to the right of their left brain' to uncover a deep internal peace. Meg Ryan was in the audience when Dr. Taylor gave her speech at TED... hey, maybe she'll do the movie and we'll all be able to "have what she's having" to reprise that line from When Harry Met Sally : ) Sign me up!
It's nice to see your writing again.
You're amazing!
this is hilarious. i can't believe i actually processed all of that. "suck it meg ryan!" hahahaaa...i laughed so hard that. and i'm sure you can make some mean pumpkin pie or really mean anything for that matter, seeing as how you've probably got a tupperware (sp?) container with the words "mean mix" buried somewhere in your pantry in brentwood. buried beneath all the peanut butter and organic what-nots. and apples.
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