The bright pastel light of the sand started to burn at the nerves at the base of my lashes. All 327 of them. The way the sun was sitting on the verge of winter’s solstice had all the dogs walking diagonally. After they had done shitting at the shoreline and after their owners playing out the secret service cover-up, everything quieted.
.Cross-Referencing the Senses.There was this book buried deep in my coat pocket. Given to me by a friend missing her bloodshot eyes. She was so into authors with middle initials and so sad that her own was so weak (N, for Nina). So she gave me this book 17 months ago just before she left for a town that was close enough to drive to but too far to make the effort for. I decided to pay my dues and take her thought to the beach. I had taken many other thoughts to the water and usually let them fritter away within the airspace of my skipping rocks. That’s what usually happens: my intentions turn from a light introductory toss to an overwhelming need to break the most recent record (14) and my thought is left in the ripple. And this book was going to have a hard time weighing down my more human urges because if I felt attached to the obligation, I wouldn’t have waited 511 days.
I start the thing just after my jeans finish temperature negotiations between the boulder on which I sit and the flesh within which my blood circulates and nerves function aptly. The first line goes:
There are ticks that pretend to live in his clothes
and not even leave him when he goes into the street.I suspect passion from the outset; it is very discouraging. Lines and lines read like the followed instructions found in Passionate Writing for Dummies (HarperCollins). Rust-red paint from the freighter anchored in the harbour starts to jump out. While I avoided my book debating whether this happened because of the position of the sun-so low on the horizon- or to fill the need for a token distraction to free me from the blander, I started nibbling on a Hershey’s chocolate bar that was handed out free at the doors of the movie theatre the other evening. I had an extra because my faux-date left hers on my dash. It has been so cold and the thing has kept fresh. Keeping it in neutral conductivity fabrics gave it a snap you can’t get in any of the other seasons. Not even the ski season because that’s all littered with heating and fireplaces.
Halfway down the bar I take another crack at the book, skipping ahead to 44 to see if theirs any better news along the way. Just a tortured artist talking to a depressed old whore. Perhaps the author draws her character profiles from magnetic poetry. There is no excuse for it. So I hit the shoreline and leave the chocolate surrounded in foil in the temporary shelter of my toque. Rock-skippers need a clear head.
I was busy living out my On Golden Pond director’s cut fantasy when the glare made me change position. Said glare being not from the water but from windows of a seven-story mausoleum across the harbor. Three degrees from the sun to it’s glass which bounces it three degree back (and down) towards me. When I dig my feet into the firm winter sand, my tongue runs pasty within my mouth over the glaciers of chocolate lodged in my molars. A greater annoyance the texture than a pleasure the taste, I need something to wash it out with. Salt water is out because it makes me gag, and because I’ll contract pedophilia from drinking the inlet water. So it’s the mandarin in my little bag. The other stuff in my bag I save for later.
I washed the chocolate out of my teeth with a mandarin orange only to feel again myself eating an intense dessert not two years ago. Taste archives recall the moment. Bizarre how the senses trigger all new forms of recognition. I later realized this is the entire point of hand-me-down recipes, but in that present it was enough to grasp the night of this taste. Kept thinking about this Steely Dan song, Doctor Wu where he sings
Don’t seem right
I’ve been strung out here all night
I was waiting for the taste you said you’d bring to meNice tune but distracting. It was June just before the other solstice and I was at a send off party with most of my pre-production crew. It was fondue for fun and I remember dipping with Brenda. She’s the one who gave me the awful book I was running away from for so long. Cross-referencing of the senses fucked me up for a good hour. But then I smashed my record. And it was alright to ditch the book because my physical senses took care of the memorial.
The end of the peel...
... tinkle tinkle little star
