The Remains of the Day: some concluding thoughts, on a memorable day

., originally uploaded by snjezana..

untitled, snjezana

THREE MIRACLES THAT HAPPENED TODAY: A LIST

1. I knew the cd was scratched. It had been playing up for weeks, and always at my favorite spot. I slid it in anyway. Hope I guess, listened to the first song. The second started, I waited for the scratch, instead, I heard it:
   
   and look at you and me,
   still here, together
   
   it looks so plain on the page, alone like that; I cherish that phrase as much as I love anything from Bach or Brahms. It's perfect. Perfectly expressed. The music exalts the sentiment. Something so banal becomes so important. It worked. The track played through. I didn't know how to thank God.
   
   
2. too-tired-to-put-into-words, I arrived home. Exhausted. Hungry. I had not eaten the microwaved hot-dog. The day had been far to difficult to end it with a hot dog. or an icecream sandwich. Or a burger (again).
   
   "Where are you going?"
   "food."
   "it's nearly 11"
   "i know"
   "nothing's open"
   "i need to walk"
   "how do you have energy to walk?"
   "i have energy for nothing else."
   "oh! stop with the poetry already"
   [shrug]
   "where are you going?"
   "i want japanese. but i'm sure it's closed. i'll just go to the diner"
   "you hate their food"
   "still"
   
   I walked down the street. Mostly the night sleeping behind dark glass, fluorescent night-lights to keep dirty dreams company.
   I stopped. OPEN Mon-Fri 6pm-2am. really?
   
   green tea. chirashi. miso. broiled shitake mushrooms.
   ________a day well ended.
   
   
3. my sister sleeps in her own house. alone.
   perhaps i had to give up my independence for hers. [shrug], whatever. it's a miracle

*__*__*

i love the color of swimming pools at night. like slabs of alien-blue. it's how i imagine infinity must look (if i could ever get close enough to see her face to face).

can i name my daughter Eternity? is that a stripper name? I can't decide.

*__*__*

in the car. 40 more minutes of this and surely i'll be dead. the highway, tired, sways this way and that; the tongue of some long-necked dragon. it's breaths tinting the air yellow. This is the way i'll always remember LA. cemented spines that exhale yellow into the air. twinkles of harsh white and red. little mice in little 4-wheeled cages sitting and sweating it out.

*__*__*

SYMBOLS I HAD PLANNED FOR WHEN I HAD A HOME (THAT I NEVER HAD): A LIST

1. When i finished uni, a white blanket.
   In my home, by my sofa, i wanted a trunk/chest, filled with pillows, and a soft-white blanket. It would be there in case winter chanced by. in case Time was late, and i lay there and read, or watched movies, or made love.
   
   
   [i have never had sex in a swimming pool. (end of thought)]
   
   
   
2. turntables. technics 1200s. in my living room. I would play records, dubs. Beats and a bassline. Run to the piano, improvise chords. it would be heaven in a living room.
   
   
3. shelves. probably white. i wanted all my books at arm's length. i would check things. Words from my two volume World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary. Remember a poem, walk to my shelf, pick one (pick me! pick me! they'd chant) read.
   
   [i think i have lost the concept of home. it has been too long since i fell asleep in a woman's hair. is that what home means to me now?, to fall asleep in a woman's hair? if i add: and she still be there in the morning, years, it's been years. Have i been alive? Can i consider myself to be human, all these nights?]
   
   
4. you. If you were in it, it'd be my home.
   
   
5. ...
   ...___?
   ______(i can't think of anything anymore. it's gone

*__*__*

i walk home wearing a plaid shirt i haven't worn in months. it lost a button in haifa. i think your eyes on it- it got nervous and leaped. sleeves rolled. a mostly unread copy of Foreign Affairs under my arm. (i don't know why i bothered, i knew i was going to stare straight down at my green tea the whole time anyway).

Older Chests by Damien Rice played on. What is life that I should find myself at 11:49pm walking down Santa Monica Rd. on a Wednesday?

*__*__*

after days like today... i wonder how i manage to fit my massive wings under my skin.
i undress and stare at my back in the mirror for an hour.
no trace of them.

(and yet, i still hunch my shoulders when i walk through doorways)


*__*__*

a new world just began.
that's all that ye need to know.