I'm off to San Francisco in an hour. Toronto was really good, and I always regret leaving a good place before I've had a chance to really get into it, try to understand it, find the underground places.
But it's always strange, living like this. I love the city after city of it. I love the different skylines, the languages, the different styles of clothing and tattoos. But it's always so busy and I'm always so jetlagged that what I'm left with afterwards is a swirl of pictures and feelings rather than a narrative memory. This is what it's like...
Approaching the skyline at night in the back of a taxi, seeing the city for the first time, unfolding itself around you, lit up like a dream. The smell of subway, memories of New York. The spiral tattoo on the lower back of an Asian girl as she waits for the light to change. Falling asleep to thunder, the strange and somehow comfortable disconnectedness you feel, sleeping alone in another hotel room. The hard grinding, hung-over, jetlagged fatigue of early morning at the airport, feeling the way you imagine an engine feels when it tries to run without any lubrication. The kerosene smell of jet fuel, washing over you as you wait for the plane. All the faces of all the people on all the streets, bored, busy, beautiful, suspicious, laughing, kissing, crushed, hopeless. And all of this, Jesus Christ, you try to hold on to all of this but you can't, and all you can do if you're lucky is find just one moment to sit and breathe in silence, say a couple of namu myoho renge kyo's and try to process, to internalize it. To just be here, now, whatever place you're in.
And as much as you can, to forget nothing.
Posted by case at July 14, 2004 08:04 PMwish I could meet up with ya man... just happens to be crunch time at work, and we're savin' up for a new orleans trip in september. hope it's a blast for you though, sounds excellent.
Posted by: Jeremy at July 20, 2004 10:46 PM