april 1
A beautiful day in the Village. Outdoor seating for lunch on MacDougal near Bleecker. Side by side chairs facing the street in the shade of the awning, the table in the sun. My coffee and his bottle of Sam Adams - no draft again. The guy next to us is inspired hearing it ordered, though - "Hey, Sammy A!" Maybe he's from Boston too.
Slow Saturday trafffic and people walking by, a nice city feeling. Something is missing though, and finally figure out that it's music. None in the cafe and none in the street. Not much later in Soho and Tribeca either. Finishing errands in a shop near City Hall and music at last - an old REM, Michael voicing relationship fears. Oh no, I've said too much - I haven't said enough
april 2
A slow Sunday morning, even with last night's hour lost to the time change. Late breakfast in a small Tribeca bakery. Sitting at a quiet table looking out onto the street, talking and waking up, watching the neighborhood wake up too. Quite a few families with small children walking on the street now, different from the people on the street at night. City life absorbs everyone, and it feels good to be part of it.
Back alone at the station waiting for the train. Leaving a respectful distance for the people saying goodbye, envying their closeness now, but not the separation that they face.
april 5
My desk is a conference table in the corner of the open space of a large room, with partitions for offices ahead and to the left, and doors opening in from both walls at the end of the open space. Taped to a file cabinet just next to the desk is a poster whose subject is "Me." It's full of words like special, authentic, self-esteem and own, as applied to the self, and someone found it inspirational enough to put there. I like to respect the things that have meaning to other people, even if not my taste, but this seems to be of another era, something open to parody today, and I wonder at just what point it started to seem that way and why. And what an equivalent kind of inspirational poster would say today. And how long it would take for that to seem dated too.
Time to leave this pleasant place for home. Smile and say hello to the smokers outside. A bright April day, a little too cold here, but warm sun draped across my shoulders like the arm of a friend
april 6
Went to see High Fidelity last night. Once the movie starts you don't notice you're alone. Caught his love with Stiff Little Fingers.
april 7
Reports of delay mean starting out late tonight. I like to drive though, and am used to keeping strange hours.
An easy route with not much traffic, the Boston skyline ahead. A nice kind of alone, not really alone, with music and thoughts for company. Out on a cold clear night, wrapped and warm in a blanket of stars.
april 8
Le diner. A yearly dinner with French friends. Everyone brings someone who may not speak French though, so we speak English for the night. A different view of each other than we're used to in French. There we tend to be less guarded and more intimate. Someone leans over the table to say that she spoke to someone else during the week. "I couldn't place her because she was speaking English."
One language permits more facts, more clarity. The words that tell about our lives. The other permits more intimacy, more feeling. The words that make us close. I like this fuller way of knowing someone - with two ways of talking.
Time to leave, a good evening, lots of food, lots of wine, full of English news. A kiss on both sides of the face, deux fois in the French manner. Goodnight, goodnight, bon soir - a la prochaine fois, je t'embrasse.
april 10
Too tired from keeping odd hours and inviting intensity. Intensity may be welcome and oddness expected, but not the tyranny of time. Too much already in this lifetime.
Cover the clock
Make time disappear
You are here,
You are held,
You are safe,
You can sleep.
april 13
A longer day and a different schedule. Going an hour earlier means a different group on the train. Everyone is reading ...newspapers. I read along with the woman next to me. Locally the BigDig - the project getting to be as big as the pyramids. The financial headline rhymes - How Low Can NASDAQ Go? Inter- nationally, strange goings-on in Australia over a proposed new tax.
Errands are the task for noon. Haven't walked through Copley Square for a long time. it's cool today, but people are hungry for the sunshine, eating lunch and sunning their faces, strolling and smoking before returning to their buildings.
I must be smiling at my happy thoughts. When I look up people are smiling back at me. this makes me happy too. Today I am on the giving end as a kind stranger, and not on the grateful receiving end where I so often find myself.
When I leave after work, if I look up and to the left there is a pretty pink stone church spire that juts into the sky. It has a clock in it, and at dark the whole spire is lit up. Every week I find myself looking at it without having thought to do so, liking to see the time, and liking the way it's framed against the night sky, and liking to follow the end of it off into the world.
Lately when I leave, it's been unlit in a jarring bright daylight that doesn't suit it as well as the soft dusks of winter. This winter wasn't a hard one, and brought a warmth and sweetness of its own. It's late when I leave today, though. My eyes find the spire as usual, aglow and pushing into the night sky, both of us happier surrounded by a soft darkness
april 15
Things are in reverse tonight. Blue Man Group has been here forever, but we're finally seeing it at ten, so dinner first at a favorite place in the theater district, a little earlier than usual.
The restaurant side is crowded, but the big open industrial bar has a just right table near the window. My Oatmeal Stout, his Irish Amber, nice to look out the window and talk. The street is a mix of neighborhood people and theater goers, street theater that never gets boring. Groups of young guys, people with strollers, couples holding hands. Crowds everywhere in Boston this weekend, here for Monday's marathon.
Out into the warm night, reflexive look up at the starlit sky. Across busy Stuart St. and down quiet Warrenton. Upstairs at the Charles, an intimate space, transported for a while by cascades of color and pounding percussion.
april 18
On a hunch, I stop into the car dealer to check the tires. Things are always friendly here, but today they have alarming news - these tires, all four, must be replaced right away. I am preventive maintenance oriented to a fault - how can this be? But there it is. We wonder about timing. He looks at some future dates on his monitor. But he can work it in today if they stay a little longer. "Would you still be interested?"
I smile at him. What a question. "Yes, of course. It would make more sense for me to ask you that question."
april 19
I can't help looking at the girl on the Green Line train. Her eyes are full of sadness. She holds a coffee cup and her hands keep twisting and worrying it. Her mouth moves a little, maybe with words she's forming in her mind. It's hard to see so sad a person. This makes me think of Wim Wender's nice film Wings of Desire, where angels walk among people, sensing their pain and helping to soothe it. I wish there were an angel here for this sad girl. Maybe there is.
Work projects are good today, but I keep checking the time this morning anyway. 9 on the steeple clock when I arrive, glances off and on at my watch till 11. Maybe an early lunch. The long walk to the cd store will be good, even on this misty day.
No sense bringing an umbrella - this pervasive mist will not be kept away. It feels good and somehow reassuring, staying close by my side, making swift little touches to hair and face and hands, like a friend who's been missed for a long time.
april 21
There's a pub in Porter Square in Cambridge, farther out Mass Ave from Harvard Square, and across from a busy T and commuter train transfer station. A sort of Cheers kind of neighborhood place, with a bar in the center and fireplace at one end, dark floors and a warm feel. A default place to go - things will always be good here. It's busy tonight, but no wait for a table.
A table for two by the brick wall. We color in the pages for each other of the days we've been apart. Easy to talk and unwind, listen to bits of conversation floating past from other people. This is a Friday night ritual we like.
Bush is in the background - "silence is not the way, we need to talk about it." I give this a little thought - how talking when something is wrong is like touching for me, bringing relief and connection like hugging or holding would. Maybe because it removes mental distance, the way touching removes physical distance. When it's not available, it aches like wanting to hold and be held does when it isn't possible.
Maybe not everyone is wired this way. I guess the person the song was written for isn't. Maybe she found it annoying.
april 22
Miserable weather for all of Easter weekend. Probably get rained out of the Red Sox game tomorrow. Not tempting to do anything but stay in tonight, the last two people on earth to see Star Wars - The Phantom Menace.
april 26
Other people use my desk-table when I'm not here, so it's interesting to see what's on it when I come back. Today it's samples the artists have left, my favorite. Some nice metal and ceramic pieces, some interesting fabric. There are books and folders, evidence of what's been happening in my absence. Today a stack of three cd's to be returned to someone - John Coltrane, Love Supreme, Kitaro, and the soundtrack from Gigi. Always interesting what people listen to. A map of things you might never know about them otherwise.
april 27
Winter weather today. Sleet and wind, raw and wet,
my nice little umbrella turned inside out. Outdoor tables
and chairs unused but staunchly there. These days are
part of this season too, but embracing warmth is its core
Still working on a voice for this. I don't like to leave it vacant for too long, but I'm not always satisfied with what comes to mind. I want to experiment with changing things a little, so this may have a less than focused sound for a bit
Driving to Toronto this weekend with a good traveling companion and fellow musichead. She brings the music - I like being surprised. Too early departure tomorrow, though - think I have everything ready tonight, so it's just a big cup of coffee and out the door in the morning.
april 28
Weather.com was too pessimistic. It's a beautiful day in Toronto - warm with clear blue skies. We're here early enough to walk through Trinity Square to the Eaton Centre for some shopping. Techno/dance/house sounds so much better in stores, somehow, doesn't it?
You see big plastic rims and little wire ones, but everyone in Toronto seems to have good glasses. It's not fair to say that Canadians say "about" like "aboot" - it's really more of an "ab-ow-oo-t," only fast.
april 29
Open the curtains this morning to another beautiful day. Down in the square surrounding Trinity Church, people are walking around in shirtsleeves and the restaurant is just opening, covering its outdoor tables in bright yellow cloths. In the office building across the way, the person who was working so late last night seems to have gone home.
We spend the day on Queen St. W. in a few condensed blocks of shops and restaurants, trendy but not glitzy, and stop in late afternoon at a coffee shop. The studio for Much Music, the Canadian music channel, is just across the street. A big group of people is gathered on the sidewalk, looking in through the windows to try and see whoever is performing inside.
Out the side window of the coffee shop, a girl with short blond hair is smiling and animated, having a conversation with her friend in sign language. A couple walks by looking just as happy to be together, their conversation just as silent to me through the glass. A nice old song is playing with a favorite line - it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you
