Wading Saturday Night
“We stumble through memory and youth like tourists in a forgotten town.”
We start early with a Revenge of the Sith 20th-anniversary viewing at the theatre. Weaknesses yes, but bravo on still being entertaining after all these years.
Portman, McGregor and Hayden-Christensen still deliver emotional punches. And HOW beautiful they all were. Especially Portman—stunner. Writing could be stronger. Devastating ending. Especially in light of my ongoing losses and recovery.
I did not expect to weep.
At Books a Million now. Looking at Best American short stories and thinking about a young couple across the room. She, 16, he… 17, maybe 18. His garb is typically male gen z. Slouchy lazy jeans and sweatshirt.
Who am I kidding? This has been the de facto boy costume for the last 25 years.
He leans in seeking her attention. With his little goatee and feint mustache. She probably likes that he is needy and funny. But he seems desperate from a distance.
Aren’t we all, man? Aren’t we all? Don’t worry, you find your confidence and inspire someone to love you. Don’t rush it.
She, leaning back and aloof. Her pants are just threads hip to ankle, front to back. Wearing shorts under so that her private parts aren’t exposed. Hair pulled up in a tight little ball at the back of her head and topped with a Yale sweatshirt probably made in a sweatshop. Apropos.
I wonder if they care that Star Wars is 48 years old or that a 20 year old prequel is currently in theaters? That she is sitting and charging her phone in a bookshop indicates that probably not. She’s seen clips. Shared them with him. But neither can stomach more than 20 or 30 minutes of long form narrative.
They’ve neither ever finished a whole book. They’ll never read me. Not because no one ever will, but because I don’t write short pithy comments on TikTok.
The cafe barista—Bree, a teacher who loves RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, is complaining to a stranger who calls her ‘friend’ like that is a phrase he uses with everyone. Bree invites him to join their game night at a local pub. She has been at work since opening (11a?) and it is now 7. Her girth likely makes it tough to grind all day on her feet. I see the heavy lean on the counter and I feel for her.
I used to see women and men like her and assume emotional trauma—now I think it’s likely diet and lifestyle and social media. We just don’t move like we used to.
On a recent road trip we saw dozens of cyclists wherever we went. In nearly every case they were battery powered kits. Exercise, yes. But I’d have never built the massive calf and thigh muscles that propelled me through life if I hadn’t ridden a worn out 10 speed from 11–16 years.
That bike—it must have been a gift from my parents. I cherished that steed and rode it long past its expiration date. When it finally bit the dust—a broken frame—my metal-working father chopped it up can constructed what today would be considered a very desirable custom low-rider. At the time, I wasn't very thrilled. When you turned a corner, the pedals scraped the ground. I was very function-over-form then. I think I still am.
Toward its end, just before I got my first car, I kept wearing out shoes because the brakes were shot and to stop I had to wedge my left foot between the seat post and the rear wheel.
It was a super effective brake system. But I always felt low-class rolling up to school like that. A cycling version of Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink.
I too wanted no one to know where I lived.
Prom night here and gaggles of kids are running around the mall adjacent to the bookstore from which I’m people watching. The boys in their limp tuxedos, the girls swimming in yards of ill-fitted satin. There's a sacred kind of awkwardness in it all.
There is a power in being well-dressed that even religion struggles to endow. And it is true even if you only THINK you are well dressed. Beauty (and comfort) are in the eye of the beholder. When they are older, they will come to value the feel and fit of a well tailored garment.
Their cologne hangs long after they have drifted around the corner to the arcade. No doubt to kill some time before the dance starts at 8. They look like a timid group. But maybe one is a stinker and has smuggled an almost empty pint of rot-gut whisky swiped from his dad’s liquor cabinet and filled with water to make it appear as though he’s scored something impressive.
They will all pretend to get drunk after spilling some of the watered down swill into their Red Bull or Pepsi. What do the kids drink now?
Enough wading through my mental weeds. Let me see what Ian Thomas has to say in this copy of ‘the secret of you’.
I’m buying. He had me at:
‘Talk to me like it’s the end of the
I world and I still matter.’
And:
‘In the middle of the candle flame,
The colors disappear,
And there,
If you listen,
Every poem
Ever written
Lives.’
I love short poems. This is a whole book of them. I cannot write short poems and get bored reading long ones. But, oh! god! How I love to go on and on. The sound of one’s own voice is a siren.
#essay #freewriting #randomthoughts #storytelling #write #100daystooffload #ianthomas
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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