Sound
I was about to write about bipolar II and borderline personality disorder yesterday evening, over a beer I shouldn't be having and on a carpet I should have cleaned one week ago. I started with, "The thing with bipolar II co-morbid with borderline personality disorder is that there is not one thing about them; they're a clusterfuck of motherfucking things. No, this is not an inspirational story." Yada yada yada, ended up with three or five other sentences, found that I cannot rope concepts and causality properly, and gave up. I just drank beer and disappeared from the world. I know, and I will repeat - neither of these things are things I should be doing.
Come today I was mostly alright, stabilizing enough from the alcohol that I shouldn't have been having, and managed to be a functional adult. You, I imagine, are like that, say, after having had coffee, or a hug, or rest from whatever it is that life bludgeons you with. Or whatever it is that you bludgeon yourself with the night before, which, in hindsight, is always yourself, which in all of creation is the most effective bludgeon there is.
And then without a hitch in the universe's breath you find yourself going back to things that make you feel small, like a very detailed rehash of how you can't seem to get your shit together even after 34 years of existing (you would think you'd have mastered some of mentioned shit by now), how you still have the same problems you had as a child - only this time in the guise of grownup labels and words, how this one person you can't seem to get out of your head outshines you in every single way possible. So what do you do? Why, what any sane person would do, damnit. Click on one link after another and then finally find her - moving, and speaking, and reading, and you're not alright again.
So yeah, that's what I did. Bludgeon myself with myself, and yes, both you and I are sick of hearing it. I was midway into staring at her move, at her read, listening to her words and how she can rope concepts and causality properly, until I hear music from a saxophone outside my window, drowning out all noises from automobiles outside and all noises inside my head, including the memory of her voice.
Without a hitch in the universe's breath or in mine, I turned from her and listened to him, turning off my speaker and going out of my door. A man wearing a black dress shirt, black trousers, and worn-out black loafers was doing Christmas carols next door. I lit a cigarette, took some money, left my door open, went down the stairs, opened the gate, and listened to him play. He came to my apartment's gate next, I smiled, and asked him to play another song, and he did.
In those four minutes nothing existed except his sound and my smile.
He went from one door to another, all ten doors on my street, only finishing three songs since most of them gave him money not half a minute into his pieces. I watched from the balcony for fifteen minutes as people and cars passed him by, until he disappeared into the corner onto the main road.
In those fifteen minutes nothing existed except the sound of his saxophone, the sound of his loafers, and my smile.
I went back inside, locked my door, sat down on my chair, and heard the cars again, and turned on to words again.
Sometimes, though, it's not words that you need - not anybody telling you things, not anybody reading things, not anybody making any words at all. Sometimes, unworded sound is enough to fill your head because it commands silence from everything else. You can almost believe that it is the hitch in the universe's breath, when the universe itself pauses to listen and takes you out of yourself and your bludgeon and your clusterfuck of motherfucking things, takes you out of your irrational smallness, takes you and gathers you with it in something so beautiful eloquence isn't even a goddamned word, because there are no words, finally. No concepts or causality around which to wrap words. It is words that move us; it is sound that stills.
There are still carpets to clean, though, but fuck it. "Against one perfect moment," Sir Pratchett says, "the ages beat in vain." I had four minutes of a perfect moment, and it was filled with nothing except sound.
Come today I was mostly alright, stabilizing enough from the alcohol that I shouldn't have been having, and managed to be a functional adult. You, I imagine, are like that, say, after having had coffee, or a hug, or rest from whatever it is that life bludgeons you with. Or whatever it is that you bludgeon yourself with the night before, which, in hindsight, is always yourself, which in all of creation is the most effective bludgeon there is.
And then without a hitch in the universe's breath you find yourself going back to things that make you feel small, like a very detailed rehash of how you can't seem to get your shit together even after 34 years of existing (you would think you'd have mastered some of mentioned shit by now), how you still have the same problems you had as a child - only this time in the guise of grownup labels and words, how this one person you can't seem to get out of your head outshines you in every single way possible. So what do you do? Why, what any sane person would do, damnit. Click on one link after another and then finally find her - moving, and speaking, and reading, and you're not alright again.
So yeah, that's what I did. Bludgeon myself with myself, and yes, both you and I are sick of hearing it. I was midway into staring at her move, at her read, listening to her words and how she can rope concepts and causality properly, until I hear music from a saxophone outside my window, drowning out all noises from automobiles outside and all noises inside my head, including the memory of her voice.
Without a hitch in the universe's breath or in mine, I turned from her and listened to him, turning off my speaker and going out of my door. A man wearing a black dress shirt, black trousers, and worn-out black loafers was doing Christmas carols next door. I lit a cigarette, took some money, left my door open, went down the stairs, opened the gate, and listened to him play. He came to my apartment's gate next, I smiled, and asked him to play another song, and he did.
In those four minutes nothing existed except his sound and my smile.
He went from one door to another, all ten doors on my street, only finishing three songs since most of them gave him money not half a minute into his pieces. I watched from the balcony for fifteen minutes as people and cars passed him by, until he disappeared into the corner onto the main road.
In those fifteen minutes nothing existed except the sound of his saxophone, the sound of his loafers, and my smile.
I went back inside, locked my door, sat down on my chair, and heard the cars again, and turned on to words again.
Sometimes, though, it's not words that you need - not anybody telling you things, not anybody reading things, not anybody making any words at all. Sometimes, unworded sound is enough to fill your head because it commands silence from everything else. You can almost believe that it is the hitch in the universe's breath, when the universe itself pauses to listen and takes you out of yourself and your bludgeon and your clusterfuck of motherfucking things, takes you out of your irrational smallness, takes you and gathers you with it in something so beautiful eloquence isn't even a goddamned word, because there are no words, finally. No concepts or causality around which to wrap words. It is words that move us; it is sound that stills.
There are still carpets to clean, though, but fuck it. "Against one perfect moment," Sir Pratchett says, "the ages beat in vain." I had four minutes of a perfect moment, and it was filled with nothing except sound.
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