I stare at two photos she posted over herself, unable to
tell which one is the real her, it either is – one, the happy-go-lucky gal she
most displays in the videos she posts, the other, darker, cautious, maybe even
scared, as if we have both traveled back in time to when she believe she had
every right to be, hair pinned back, head slightly turned, as if she felt the
need to be ready to run if she had to.
The brighter picture has her hair down as she smiles, both
bearing the same intense stare, eyes so deep I drown in them. I’m not sure
which one I believe though leaning towards the darker face as it face is the closest
I’ll ever get to the real her.
“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans,” says a paraphrase of a John Lennon song, who stole the saying from a poet whose name I have forgotten. This is never so true as to the events going on with the federal government these days as the new administration makes massive cuts to funding of not-for-profits and other organizations. Just when you think life is secure, when you have all your ducks in a row (as the old cliché goes), something mucks up the works (another cliché) and you end up scrambling to put your life back together, but don’t quite yet know how. Although correct in theory, the idea of reducing the work force has an unexpected impact on the people involved. People make plans; they assume they can get on with their lives securely. They believe that if they had put enough time into their careers, they will be rewarded, and perhaps get on pursuing their own interest, dreams they had since childhood for the first time poss...
She posted a video explaining much of it yesterday, but not everything. In fact, she made a point of not explaining the exact reasons for her moving, except to say that it had been mounting for a while and came to a head suddenly and sooner than she expected. She wasn’t crying; yet it felt like she wanted to. She didn’t say why exactly she chose to go back to that part of New York State where she previously lived, except to say even though NY is expensive, it is cheaper than where she is living currently – hinting that part of the motivation may be financial. She also pointed out that her family lives in the area (somewhat south, but easier to reach than from where she is now.) But she deliberately did not go into the gritty details of the rest, which if judged by the pattern of her life, may involve a ruined romance. I don’t think this has anything to do with me or my decade old journal that I have been posting, but I stopped posting – at least tempo...
Everything remained the same, unchanged over the months since our last coming, a chill air of mid-spring swirling around us as we took the stroll to the green merry-go-round building and then to the casino, all still in disrepair, like the bones of some prehistoric creature nobody wants to acknowledged existed, as off the beach, in those vacant places where old clubs once thrived, yellow dinosaurs dig up the earth, or deposit massive lava flows of concrete, foundation of a new era in which we who remember the past will have no place, we, the extinct species who still ache for what once was, knowing it will never be again. The chill discouraged others from coming out, or perhaps fear of pending rain. One couple we met had stopped here on their way from Atlantic City to their home in Bloomfield, to rest, to pay homage, having lived through that age when music filled the streets, along with the rumble of hotrods along Thunder Road, the ghosts of those giants hovering nearby in t...
Comments
Post a Comment