march 8
The Kendall T station in Boston, the stop for MIT, has a big set of chimes hanging between the inbound and outbound platforms, between the tracks. A lever on each platform makes gongs hit suspended metal poles, and the resulting sound is kind of deep and haunting and pretty melodic. Someone on one side or the other always gets it going,and then people watch it move, and look at each other from opposite sides of the platform. Some days are too sad for anything but shared music and looking into strangers'eyes
march 11
Elaine May's new play, Taller Than A Dwarf with Alan Arkin directing Matthew Broderick and Parker Posey - is in Boston previews before moving to New York. Matthew Broderick just always looks like Ferris Buehler. Nice, though - like seeing an old friend. Typical Boston audience, dressed sensibly for the cold rainy night. A woman left her book in the lobby The God of Small Things.A funny thing, being part of an audience. You arrive with your boundaries intact, and give them up for a while to be one cell in a new entity.
Then out into the night, across the street to the Brew Moon, boundaries intact, looking for new ways to blur them
march 12
Listening to rain, enveloped and soothed.
march 14
A few hours spent in French. The less familiar language creates a certain intimacy, a lowering of guards, as does our habit of tu We tell each other things we might not say so readily in English. Someone is asked where she learned French. En Afrique, where she saw so much pain, she says, j'ai perdu ma foi.This intimacy can incorporate what it encounters. You have lost your faith, but here you are with friends.
It's easier to understand than to speak, and everyone else is far more fluent. The familiar frustration of wanting to say something felt, something more complex than talk of daily life - but no right words to convey it. A hopeless search to find them, and a look of defeat at my friends. Each face says the same thing. Non, non - je te comprends. Je te comprends toujours.
march 16
The old problem with space and time is magnified by having actually changed both. Flying gives some cues, at least, and anything is helpful. That was the Atlantic, this is the Pacific. It took a long time getting dark because we flew West With The Night.
Some interesting talk with the guy in the window seat. He generously tilts his laptop to share a Kung Fu movie - surprisingly engrossing. His screen saver is a sepia photo of Penn Station. A silent in-flight Galaxy Quest and a few pages of a book add to a reassuring sense of gravity. Saved for a while longer from floating away.
The last few minutes in the day, letting its events sort themselves out. Half-formed thoughts take shape, others retreat, some push to get ahead like passengers in crowded aisles.
A frightening one returns fully formed and insistent now. Lock it up in one form - it returns in another, and I don't hold the keys. Attempts to push it aside increase its strength. Nothing to do but let it sleep with me tonight.
march 17
Haven't been to Berkeleyin a few years. Skipped Chez Panisse (thank you, Alice) in favor of a bistro next to a jazz school, so jazz with lunch. Never too sure what to think about jazz, but it seemed to fit today. You always know you're in Berkeley - signs in shop windows for a new play, Dramatic Masturbation. In Sproul Plaza on campus, echos still of all that student anger all those years ago. Walked up and down Telegraph for a while. No luck finding Nick Cave in a used cd shop.
A new location tonight, a much better computer situation, and an annoying javascript problem solved. And for the first time in days, no internal server errors. No screen blanking out pages before they can be read. So reading pages and feeling connected again. And music.
Still trying to learn a new code. Found a page a friend wrote, dense in content and code, and decided it could be used as a key. Now that things will stay still on the screen, can look at it as a whole to try and see its patterns. I want to learn this language. Some code is familiar to me already. I recognize and remember it. It will just take some time to make the connections on more complex things.
More soothing companions tonight. Song and music music music.
march 20
The City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco is on Columbus Avenue near Chinatown, across from the Hungry i and up a steep hill from the tall pointy TransAmerica building. It was a center for beat poets and authors of the 50's, and is still owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Small posters in the store about readings by him and Janice Mirikitani later this month.
The store is in an old building. The basement looks like a basement, but with books. You wander around rooms on the main floor, and go around a corner and up some stairs to the poetry section. The beat literature section is up there too, and when you stand facing it all those names jump out at you. Burroughs, Kerouac, Corso, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Cassady. A good pilgrimage.
march 22
Space and time
It was silly to stay up late in a zone 3 hours earlier than this.
Space and time I miss that place I want to stay longer
march 24
Bridges are another good way for people to reach each other.
march 25
Back to the South End, Boston's heavily gay and good restaurant neighborhood, to a favorite place. The restaurant is all glass across the front, with a long bar down one side. Arrive at nine, an hour and a half wait for a table, so over to a corner between the glass and the end of the bar. My liqueur over ice, his red wine - they must not have had anything on draft.
Turn one way, and see the world outside. Couples and groups laughing and walking, the Salvation Army sign across the street, fire trucks going by. Turn the other way, and see the world inside. The couple at the bar across from us look happy to be together. They face each other on their stools, his knees apart and hers between them. They lean into each other when they talk. Turn straight ahead and see the world in the eyes across from mine. There's nothing they don't encompass and embrace, no interest in a stifled life.
Waiting alone for the car to come by, looking at the still large moon behind hazy clouds, happy in a soft spring rain.
march 29
A day of received music and disconnected touch.
Listening to the radio for the first time in a long time. On the way to the train, Miserable by Lit, then a pretty love song, and later, Moby's Play with coffee. Interesting, the randomness of other people's choices.
Coming back in a crowded train, squeezed on a long bench of seats. Someone reading Spiritual Machines across the aisle, and a big guy next to me. Impossible not to have touching arms for many stops. Didn't see his face, and soon was just aware of the warmth of his arm, which started to feel like the essence of touch, quite removed from him - the sense of a comforting presence.
A beautiful day in Boston. All the cafes putting up outdoor seating again, and everyone happy to sit in the sun in their coats
march 30
A nagging sense of having forgotten something is resolved on entering the dentist's office - the NY guidebook. Have been a bit remiss in researching some ideas and places. Look around to see a box of toys, and two coffee table books - Dentistry andRenoir. If only everything in life were so easily resolved. Still, a sense of wasted time paging the Renoir.
The girl next to me has been very friendly, smiling and saying hello - so give it a try. Yes, she knows NY and the areas of interest well, has worked in a restaurant she can recommend too. Faith in relationships pays off again
march 31
After a year of looking, dates that will work for New York. Arrive alone, carrying enough to be awkward for the subway, and look around a little on the way to find a cab. Wanted to check on the ghosts to make sure they were okay, but needn't have worried. More alive than New York and happy in their eternal loop. Still, it's always nice to know that someone worries about you.
Finally in the cab, driving through Chelsea on the way to the river. Six o'clock on a Friday night, stuck in traffic on the West Side Highway, plenty of time to think
