days in the life (paint, poems & blue)
Happy Anniversary to the Mayweathers.
Sorry for the lack of updates. Julia spent the last few days over and we splendored in each other’s company. I dropped her off at work this morning. On the way back I called Lara as she was driving Gordon to the airport. My life is filled with the sort of themetaic parallels that make fiction so fictitious, crafted with the subtley of a gorilla with a jackhammer, but I must admit I like it that way. She seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be going to a wedding with with me on Saturday, which considering that she’s getting ready to move to another state next week is completely understandable, but I didn’t want to remind her while she was sitting next to Gordon. I didn’t want an awkward conversation so I told her to call me later.
The weekend with Julia was very relaxing and rejuvenating. Her company is most excellent and inspiring. In the course of the weekend we found many diversions and delights of surprising variety to amuse each other with. I think the hours we spent painting might have been the highlight. Of course, now there’s paint all over my floors, but I expect it should come up fairly easily as it’s only tempera, not acrilyc or oil. After we had finished with the paint, Julia was exhausted and asked me to read something to her. I said pick something out. She went to the shelf of poetry and pulled out a collection of Rilke that Lara had given to me years ago, according to the inscription inside that flashed from my hand as I flipped the pages open. Every poem I stopped at rang as if the ink weren’t yet dry. Julia gasped as the words surprised us both, and I told her about my favorite Dylan line from ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ about the book of poems written in the 13th century.
People keep asking me if I’m in love. I don’t know exactly what they mean when they ask me that. But it feels good, better than anything in a long time. Julia was standing on the board in her underwear dancing with paint all over her feet when she asked me if I had ever played like this with my wife when I was married. I laughed at the thought of Persephone being so free and told her no, she would have been terribly upset by the mess. Then I dripped blue goache over her toes.
Teahouse of the Furious Buddha 
September 30, 2008 at 4:08 pm
*gasp* I did forget – but then I had it in my calendar. It seems that I live and die by that damn thing. My apologies. I will call tonight for the details…I am looking forward to it.
Rilke is timeless – I am so glad you were able to share him with Julia.
lara
September 30, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Wow. That was up for less than 15 minutes.
Cool. I’m glad I get to spend some quality time with you before you move. Talk to you later.
-W
September 30, 2008 at 4:24 pm
my favorite – L
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me — the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house– , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,–
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…
September 30, 2008 at 5:32 pm
That is staggering.
Thank you.
The experience of reading that illustrates perfectly for myself what I was talking to Julia about. It is unspeakably humbling and gratifying to see our most intimate and unique feelings reflected on a page written in another hand. Poets breach the soul’s solitude across time and culture; it feels like Rilke knows my heart better than myself. Even now I fool myself believing that no one could know how these verses just spoke to me, but surely Rilke knew, and I think you do too.
September 30, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Winston,
It sure sounds like love to me–but a more mature kind of love, as opposed to the butterflies of youth.
Whatever it is, it’s good and pure and luminous…so enjoy it.
‘Mwah.
October 1, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Relish it all. For it is all sweet.