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July 6, 2003
mark thomas I always thought that every boring sentence should be revised to start with the words "The older I get..." Those are boring words, and they should only precede boring comments and self-absorbed, substanceless observations on the state of all things in humanity. So with a nod to Kipling I'm going to instead use the phrase "As I pass through my incarnations..." As I pass through my incarnations, I find I want to walk longer and longer distances. I've become stubborn about it. Virtually every day, no matter what the weather, I open the door to this apartment and go outside with no destination in mind and no plan whatsoever. These long walks, with no goal or purpose, are perhaps metaphors for my entire life both now and for the future. But I would be less prosaic about it. These types of journeys are not pursued for the purpose of getting anywhere or accomplishing anything. But there is meaning to them. I love driving, too. But I've come to appreciate walking for its process of discovery. I see the houses and front yards up close, and the garden gnomes, or the 9/11 memorials people have in their living room windows. Emu was looking for Debby on the Queensborough bridge, people in Woodside are taking a stand against defecating dogs -- I'd hate to miss these things by driving or even biking through town. At this time last year I was driving around Nebraska, the Dakotas, Colorado, and Wyoming. I liked the small towns, and remember driving on each street looking at every house and looking for distinguishing characteristics of every driveway and front door. It didn't take long to get through most of these towns. Some could be seen in their entirety in under 60 seconds. But I don't want to do that this year. I might make a trip somewhere in America just for the hell of it, but this summer I think New York is all I need. After nearly 13 years of living here, the city is finally starting to unfold in front of me for what it is -- a giant collection of small towns. I remember during a mayoral campaign many years ago I thought a great gimmick would be for for a candidate to vow that she or he would walk on every single street in the city of New York before election day, with a published itinerary of which streets would be visited at what time, and the ultimate destination being a voting booth or some symbolic place. If Richard Nixon could visit all 50 states in his presidential campaign, I thought, why shouldn't a mayor of New York do something similar but not as typical as strategically scouting out undecided voting communities. And if that candidate for mayor had class enough to do it, they would quote Dickens somewhere along their journey:
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! ... In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? I used to think that walking on every single street and alley in New York would be impossible to accomplish in any reasonable period of time. But the more I walk and the more I see, the less far-fetched the idea becomes. I wonder if it's been done? How long would it take? Has any individual ever walked on every single street in this city? I am starting to see that it is far from impossible.
Another item to add to my "The older I get" list, or whatever I decide to call it, is the music of Bach. Over the last few years I've come to find I can not seem to get enough of it, and I can't believe that all this time it's just been sitting there waiting for me. I've played this stuff before. Last night, though, after practicing about 7 hours for the day, I opened up the French Suites from the score my sister gave me back when she got lots of music scores for free. I've played these Suites before, but somehow they never sounded this way. I stayed up way too late just trying to wring as much music as I could from those few notes. I was yawning myself to sleep when I realized I was not going to get to the bottom of this music. The Sarabande and the second Minuet of the first French Suite -- over the years I've played through those scores dozens of times. But last night I found sadness that I never knew was there. Songful desolation. I woke up early this morning, afraid that the spell would be broken and this Suite would sound different. But it still sounded that way to me. Playing through them this morning seemed to make my blood flow a little more freely. I am projecting myself into it, possibly to excess. Other people would read this music and find anything but sadness. I had the same thought a couple of years ago, when new tapes of John F. Kennedy were released. These were tapes of him conducting presidential business, not of his public speaking. When the tapes were played on TV I stopped what I was doing to listen. I did not listen to the substance of what he said. I stopped to listen to the sound of his voice. It was a monotone. It was not sad. It was depressed. I thought "Is it true? Was JFK depressed?" I instantly recognized the droning tone of Kennedy's voice as the sound of depression. But I bet that anyone else would project a different characteristic onto those tapes of his voice. I've heard my own voice sound that way, particularly under certain circumstances. It doesn't happen so much any more, but it happened a lot during the useless meetings at my last corporate job. It sounds like it should not have been such a big deal -- aren't all meetings boring? -- but something about those meetings drowned me. Every sentence I uttered landed on the conference room table like a lifeless insect, and the sodden sound of my voice spread through the room like rain that had fallen without anyone seeing it. During days filled with these meetings I would hide in my office and sit, catatonic, gaping at the wall as a numbness grew inside of me and body and soul seemed to evaporate. Only one person has ever seen me like that (and been aware of it). We lost touch and I hope he's forgotten about it. « Two-Headed Infant • sorabji.com • It Was Dark »
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