31 July 2009

A Tuesday night two-step

I'm curious.
I'm curious because I experienced a strange sensation today without the help of anything stronger than caffeine, nicotine, or sleep deprivation.
I'm wondering if you've felt this too?
It comes after a period of lethargy or general motionlessness. Let's say, for example, if you've been meditating recently for long periods of time, or if you've been wrestling with questions and problems of yours that have no real answers...or solutions...or bandaids, and you've been telling yourself that worrying is useless because it bears no fruit, or if you've been watching some cheesy teen TV drama so you can forget about your own...
Ahem...guilty, guilty, guilty and guilty.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, da dum da dum da dumb.
Right, so you've stirred yourself from this pitiful nest and you take a walk.
It's nighttime. You're alone.
And all of a sudden your pupils dilate and the darkness is full of contrast. Conversations are spilling from balconies and porches, smoke is dancing between teeth, bad music is pounding from passing cars, and in the distance insects are playing assorted strings and sinews. Not only are you aware of this around you, but you feel like bits of you and your consciousness are spiraling off your shoulders like wisps of smoke, billowing behind you as you walk. It's as if you were trailed by a cape of your awareness, and it tastes like power.
I don't know about you, but I smile at this point.
Inevitably, you get a rock in your sandal, or you run into your friends and the cape disappears; but I enjoy this space between isolation and social interaction. It makes me feel that I have my feet ever so slightly off the ground. You?

The next number is one that's hard to tap along to. It's a strange rhythm that I dance to on long-distance phone calls and scrambled text messages. It's a tune about pixels and sound bytes that magically convert to sledge hammers, bruises, tears, and sharing medical records.
Let's break it down to the base.
It's thumpin'.
Thumpa thumpa.
The base is based on ghost kisses and fiery gazes.
On heat and pheromones.
On late-night conversations over wine and sharing a shower.
Yeah, it's rockin'.
But the base fades and all you hear is highs. It's solo time and I haven't tuned my fiddle. It's a contrapunteo with fragments of your tenor punctuated with my broken baritone and a lot of white noise.
The chorus is a cliché, "can you hear me now?". I wish we were saying it in jest. But, we're not. We're looping. Not that I don't appreciate your solo contribution, but sometimes I wish we would start a new track.
Sometimes we just let the noise ride out, but silence isn't golden in this scenario. If I drop out of the track for a few days, you come up with lyrics like, "just making sure you're still alive". If you go off the track and I ask, you were busy. Busy. End of movement. I really wish you could echo some of my lines. But "I love you" seems to turn to static or a sighed whisper.
I guess you're just busy.
Right...busy.
I don't want to break up the band, but I think we need lessons.

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