Middle Distance

I smell like strangers.

Ended up dancing because I opened myself up for long enough to be swept into it.

I smell like the prettiest girl in the room, who agreed to dance and laughed as we spun, among other strangers. Sometimes something invisible transpires. Then sometimes you get all cocky when she doesn't know what "Padawan" means and you're trying to be funny but just seem like a tool.

Somebody important told me I need to learn how to quiet my mind when it gets carried away with itself. But it's impossible when the heart complains in concert.

After the dance, after an incomplete goodbye, I detached, exasperated. Wandered around staring beyond things. I've been there lots. All fingernails on chalkboards, hunger heaped upon hunger. Treading the perimeter of familiarity and kicking at the walls.

Tonight I realized something, really learned something, not in an artificial poetic device narrative way, really had a minor epiphany.

These moments are rare, but they're among a very few breeds of moment that make banality tolerable, make life livable. I mean that. It's my greatest love.

I do not love drudgery. I do not love the morose. I FUCKING. HATE. THE MOROSE. Know this, please.

Buoyancy comes with new things, new people. The heart quiets.

This is my greatest love.

My singing coach (I have one) called me to ask me if I wanted to learn Space Oddity. I explained to her that I associated the song with a very close friend who died and it would be too emotional for me to handle. So I walked into today's lesson prepared to sing "How Soon is Now." Yes, Padawan, much less emotional.

"Y'know what your trip is? You need to sing happier songs."

We had been singing Suzanne by Leonard Cohen.

So I found "Afternoon Delight" in one of her songbooks, turned it around to show her, grinning, still heart. We belted that shit and it was glorious.

There are so many chances to bring wonderful things into your life. And I am just so poorly equipped to rise to that potential. So the moments are rare.

Authoring memories out of nothingness. Rivers of alien faces. This is my greatest dream.

Shh.