Today, we are reborn.
And by "we," I mean me, you, Man, Matter. It's the Higgs Boson collision of Man is Matter, an explosion that will propel into creation a new vision of the world.
The curious, blurred vision of a little girl with three gray hairs and two left feet, and a strong affinity for spinach and thunderstorms.
Man is Matter originally formed to chronicle my adventures in London in the summer of 2009. I made observations about high tea and about British accents and about yellow tomatoes in Borough Market. I desperately recorded every moment, even the most mundane, hoping to hold on to every bit of London summer that the U.S. Border Patrol allowed.
When I returned to America, I found that my discoveries did not cease with the close of my summer travels, but that I continued to unearth treasures in the gullies of oblivion: the sterile, fluorescent aisles of Duane Reade, the rocky seats in front of the homemade ice cream parlor in Ridgewood, the open urinals in highways of Rajasthan.
When I could not leave my seat, I explored time, taste, touch and sometimes stuck out my tongue to check if it were raining. And when I had the opportunity to explore outside my own senses, I discovered mischief in the Dominican Republic and complex familial interactions in India. There were Mayan massages in Mexico and gray suits in Washington, DC. There was the man who sold $.75 coffee in the cart by my office, and the smiling blonde who sold $2.00 coffee at Oren's down the street.
Every day there was someone, there was something, of note.
And as with all things beautiful, I soon lost touch with the meaning of it all, with the meaning of discovery, forgot how rare it was to laugh on Tuesdays, to touch someone on a Wednesday afternoon, to figure out how you like your burgers cooked. The need to observe the world was reduced to an ephemeral phenomenon, something I did in my spare time, after I finished everything I was obliged to finish. I soon found myself searching for something I was missing, but searching in the wrong places, making futile attempts to move mountains, when all I needed to do was skip a rock into the river.
And, as the geographer told the Little Prince, I soon stopped recording life, because it became ephemeral, subsumed by the falsity of obligations and futures and responsibilities.
But it's precisely this quality, this "danger of a speedy disappearance," that prompts the Little Prince, and that has reminded me, to fall in love all over again.
I tasted the summer rain yesterday. My legs had goosebumps and my Calvin Klein flats landed in puddles and my hair formed its own sort of Indie-fro, but the rain tasted sweet, almost like warm milk and almonds and dates and peaches.
2009, when I tried desperately to claim all of London for my own, to grasp through slippery fingers a city that would forever evade me, is not unlike any other time, not unlike every other day.
So, once again, I shall desperately grab and clutch and scratch and fight, fight for a stillness and pause that will forever evade us.
I reclaim Man is Matter.
We're kickin it old school.
And by "we," I mean me, you, Man, Matter. It's the Higgs Boson collision of Man is Matter, an explosion that will propel into creation a new vision of the world.
The curious, blurred vision of a little girl with three gray hairs and two left feet, and a strong affinity for spinach and thunderstorms.
Man is Matter originally formed to chronicle my adventures in London in the summer of 2009. I made observations about high tea and about British accents and about yellow tomatoes in Borough Market. I desperately recorded every moment, even the most mundane, hoping to hold on to every bit of London summer that the U.S. Border Patrol allowed.
When I returned to America, I found that my discoveries did not cease with the close of my summer travels, but that I continued to unearth treasures in the gullies of oblivion: the sterile, fluorescent aisles of Duane Reade, the rocky seats in front of the homemade ice cream parlor in Ridgewood, the open urinals in highways of Rajasthan.
When I could not leave my seat, I explored time, taste, touch and sometimes stuck out my tongue to check if it were raining. And when I had the opportunity to explore outside my own senses, I discovered mischief in the Dominican Republic and complex familial interactions in India. There were Mayan massages in Mexico and gray suits in Washington, DC. There was the man who sold $.75 coffee in the cart by my office, and the smiling blonde who sold $2.00 coffee at Oren's down the street.
Every day there was someone, there was something, of note.
And as with all things beautiful, I soon lost touch with the meaning of it all, with the meaning of discovery, forgot how rare it was to laugh on Tuesdays, to touch someone on a Wednesday afternoon, to figure out how you like your burgers cooked. The need to observe the world was reduced to an ephemeral phenomenon, something I did in my spare time, after I finished everything I was obliged to finish. I soon found myself searching for something I was missing, but searching in the wrong places, making futile attempts to move mountains, when all I needed to do was skip a rock into the river.
And, as the geographer told the Little Prince, I soon stopped recording life, because it became ephemeral, subsumed by the falsity of obligations and futures and responsibilities.
But it's precisely this quality, this "danger of a speedy disappearance," that prompts the Little Prince, and that has reminded me, to fall in love all over again.
I tasted the summer rain yesterday. My legs had goosebumps and my Calvin Klein flats landed in puddles and my hair formed its own sort of Indie-fro, but the rain tasted sweet, almost like warm milk and almonds and dates and peaches.
2009, when I tried desperately to claim all of London for my own, to grasp through slippery fingers a city that would forever evade me, is not unlike any other time, not unlike every other day.
So, once again, I shall desperately grab and clutch and scratch and fight, fight for a stillness and pause that will forever evade us.
I reclaim Man is Matter.
We're kickin it old school.
Almonds and dates and peaches - mixing food groups.
ReplyDeleteB, are you the child within?
Delete