Friday, September 20, 2013

something indescribable

The moon is following me through the trees and casting my night shadow against the path. The moonlight is bright enough to show color and the leaves in the trees are still summer green but the autumn air has the careful petting directness of freezing wind. I want to let that wind touch the backs of knees but my clothes are too tight.
I imagine that a soft shoed Soli is walking silently behind me. She is listening to me scrape through the dark, she hates that I cannot walk as silently as she can. She notes my boots and how they are city boots and so not suited to walk lightly. But as she continues to trail me deeper into the trees she starts to admire how I am not afraid to take up the space in the silence.
"I'm walking here!" says the rhythm of my hard footfalls into the night.
In acting class we practiced the different walks of the four temperaments. And it's the phlegmatic who sinks deeply into her hips and her footfalls. A phlegmatic is the sort of queen who will not glide unnoticed past intelligent sanguine foxes. Phlegmatic queens are not afraid of animal attack. Animals whistle at her as she passes but she's lost in thought and doesn't "smile for us honey!" when they ask her to. She doesn't hear their requests.
The thing that separates me from the phlegmatic queen is that she does not listen to her own heavy heartbeat and she does not feel the muscles swing in her back as she swings her hips. She just walks. Like a cow.
The soupy cows are sleeping on the orchard hill under the twisted apple trees which are black claws against the silver blue sky.
I am halfway up the hill when I stop and watch the sky.
The clouds are white and so quick.
They slide over the crown of my head like crashing waves breaking or like someone reaching from behind me to cover my eyes and ask, in a disguised and deep throated voice, for me to guess their name.
The hill is steep and my feet are uneven on the ground, one knee bent, one straight.
The opening shot of my movie cannot be this. This person alone on hill in large expensive scenery taking in the sky. Thats says about a character things that I am not. But this could be the closing shot of my film. The character I will become is one who values above all things, the ability to appreciate what is exhilarating. The character I will become will vanish into exhilaration whenever she wants to and only when the clouds have all raced by and they sky is clear again will she remember the there is anything else anywhere other than the tiny switch board computer behind her eyes which clicks a single binary sequence of "that" "yes!" "that" "yes!" "that" "yes!" "that" "yes!"



Saturday, September 14, 2013

Creatures on the Beach




a different cat

We are sitting in the kitchen of someone else's house. Someone elses cat is haunting this place like they usually do- out of sight but the cat confusion penetrates the place and we feel a little bit observed. A little bit guilty about being here even though we are supposed to be. He needs to be. he is feeding to cat while they are on their honeymoon.
And there are notes on the walls that say "I will squeeze you when you get home" and notes that say "I am so lucky that you love me."
and The cat has no fur and her face is a triangle that bulges a little bit around her eyes.
and The cat is walking on our keyboards. and he is editing a music video for a well known band.
he is muttering to himself and I am typing and keep you fingers moving and keep your fingers moving
and the cars go by outside the windows
is this apartment cheaper because of the sound of the cars?
I love the sound of the cars
In this place the highway goes by the windows but it is only four lanes of highway.
Did you know that in the other place where i was living there are- let me see- let me remember- without pausing to let my fingers pause- my fingers need to continue to move there are- there are- about eight i think yes eight no more- lanes of highway. Many many lanes of highway there are definitely six on the elevated part and then there are two on each of the two exit ramps and all of this is visible from the windows of the other place where i am living where i am sleeping on the narrow mattress beside her bed. I don't pay rent. Her comforter is red and her pillows are all very very flat. I know this because I borrowed them today to lie on her bed and watch Cinema Paradiso. I put my head where her feet go and i put all her thin pillows in a stack under my head and added my pillow also and a folded up quilt- that is how thin her pillows are. Three on top of each other and still my head was not propped up enough to comfortably watch Cinema Paradiso.
I put my head where her feet normally go because that way the screen of my computer was facing away from the windows.
if the screen was facing towards the windows- if my head was wear she normally puts her head- then the screen would reflect my face. and i would watch my face watch Cinema Paradiso instead of just watching it.
Once i sat on the fire escape and watched the cars go by on the four lanes of highway and two lanes of the two exit ramps and the two lanes of the service road and the one lane one way parked car lined street that we are the last building on...
and I sat on the fire escape and ate some pages of jitterbug perfume and the fire escape shook on its rusted iron shelf with each passing truck and I was so aware- because of Jitterbug Perfume- which is about immortality- i was so aware of not wanting to die- and about loving my life- that i left the fire escape and went back inside because i was so so afraid of the shelf swinging away from the building and dumping me onto the cement below and i imagined how much i did not want to be dead right now so i went back inside because really- magnificent tho the view of highway may be- i did not want to die. so i left the rusty shelf.
So my head was where her feet normally go and i had all her three thin pillows and a quilt and my own pillow propping up my head and to tell the truth, i was a little vexed by the love story.
Not the little boy, the little boy was a wonder. and the montage of the movies and the theater and what went on there and the man who kept falling asleep and the mischievous italians who put things in his mouth while he snored and the Little boy's face and what a wonderful face and i think one time i caught the actor laughing when he should have been crying but maybe the little boy would have been laughing. maybe Toto was always laughing always in love until he fell in love and then... honestly... I became a little vexed.
And also... why is there a photo of the kissing on the cover of the DVD? The movie is not about them kissing the movie is about everyone else, everyone in the movies kissing.
Do you think
that the movies that he made- when he 'escaped' his small town life- do you think the movies that he made were all about/inspired by lost love?
I hope not.

"I'm pretty sure that you're a writer Katie. I feel like thats what you should be doing. Your stuff is pretty engaging."
It felt pretty fucking solid.
Have I ever seen cinema like that?
This is what its like...
the way that you write...
Its like...
you have everything in front of you in the room. all the details right there and its all floating away like theres no gravity. not just upwards though- a force just slightly setting the images afloat.