I've been walking more recently, to the local restaurants and coffee places, and this has offered me brief moments of perspective to not think as much as feel the mileage of the past couple of months. I think I've outgrown this "living on severance" lifestyle. I need to be busy again. No, not just busy. Busy with the right things.
Creatively, I am looking at a blank canvas thinking wistfully about the palette of colors I used to paint with. More specifically, I miss the way I used to feel around people. I miss that effect that some had on me, where I rolled around details of our last exchange in my mind. I would search music for the right theme, see colors and textures that reminded me of what they wore, even called on things they said in the things I wrote. Sadly, in my night sky they are the few steady points of light, not the gaudy ones that sparkle and sometimes fade, disappearing with the belief in their own hype. It's too easy, much too easy, to say that this only happens in Los Angeles, but the truth is that narcissism is a global obsession.
Forgive me if I've mentioned all this before. Some things, I guess, don't change. Consider it a fact that few of my friends give me pause to wonder why some things are said or done. Well, let's face it; The simple, whole-hearted people in my life have given me the opportunity to be a friend in return, and there goes the perpetual cycle of reciprocation and understanding that builds good, solid friendships. They make it easy to differentiate what is real, and what isn't.
As I may have mentioned before, the ace in my sleeve is the ability to remove myself, and walk away, if needed. For example, I was supposed to go out with a girl upon my return to L.A. earlier this year, and it should have been easy. We exchanged emails. I called her and left a message. Then I had time to think - while she was busy not returning my call or emails. I remembered that every exchange was difficult, feeling as if she was trying to manipulate the fog of ambiguity around her as if to simulate an old-fashioned idea of mystery. I had to work hard to earn any secrets she guarded (while she, of course, made it very clear she was seeing other guys). All this play, and I could only wonder what exactly the prize would be. The immediate next thought was this: If I have to work that hard on something that isn't even a friendship yet, chances are the pieces don't fit.
My most practiced instinct is to step back and watch all this impartially, in much the same way I directed plays, watching my actors go through a whole range of emotions on stage. I'm so comfortable occupying that margin in reality, where I can exercise my curiosity. There I can ask, without investment, why people would say "love ya" with the same enthusiasm and emphasis they would have reading those words off a mylar balloon. I can ask why people would use pet names in the middle of largely impersonal ideas. That is my right, after all, to ask the questions, because it sometimes becomes necessary to hang those questions off of weird, open-ended words.
I asked someone, once upon a time on a long road trip, what she was thinking. She said "nothing." Nothing on your mind? It was just blank? There was no thought process fed by anything her eyes were looking at? Did she really shut herself off like C3P0? Okay, maybe her mind was blank. I've never really known that. Maybe she was feeling something and didn't want to talk. Maybe, even, she was thinking in abstract and didn't have words for it. "Purple taffy exploding jiggle warm frisbee sharks."
People really do think nothing, and think nothing of the things they say or do. We automate, follow patterns, and repeat borrowed thoughts. Unfortunately, we sometimes build a rationale for being the way we want to be, unique and different than everyone, just like everyone, just like the person across from you and the loud conversation coming from the next table. What truly sets us apart is how we pay attention to each other, or even, if we do amidst a crowd of unconnected names.
It's too easy to stay apart and alone.
What are you thinking?
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