birds fall from the heavens; stars fall; clouds: they, too, are too heavy for grace
i've just noticed that scary people hang out in the cafe.
i wrote the other day about the scary christians. yesterday, an obese woman talking in a high falsetto put her head up against the door of the bathroom stall i was occupying and asked if i'd ever met the "berber" people. she then went about doing her business, luckily in her own stall, humming and moaning like michael jackson on helium. eek.
then today, a man followed me from the parking lot to the door of the cafe. i usually don't make eye contact with, well, anyone, but someone ran into me with her bag and i turned around to see the culprit. behind me lumbered a burly, petulant man, lantern-jawed and baby-faced. smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. "you, i know you!" he muttered as i hurried away. "you're the girl with the broken glasses, you're the girl that stood me up, mumble mumble, come back here, mumble."
i looked up just now and he was walking in and out of the men's room, his eyes vacant empty lots, begging for someone to take up residence there. he walked along a row of tables, eating a pile of free sample french bread out of his right hand. he paced, did a stiff about face, and paced back up again. please don't see me, please don't see me, i implored silently. see? my glasses aren't broken, they're right here on my head, please don't see me, please don't.
i often wonder, as i progress through periods of increasing interest in, if not god, then divinity, if i meet people like this by random chance. i have an obsessively heavy hand in my fate, or so i think. i am always waiting for it, making it, working with it. in south carolina, i was aching and wanting and aching some more. longing for i don't know what. i was on sarah's front stairs one day, smoking a cigarette, when a man came up to me and started preaching the gospel. he was a wiry black man, missing his front teeth. george williams, aged 44 years, former crack/heroine/sex/booze addict. george williams who done found the lord. i didn't want to argue with him, and i was tired of being an agnostic on a mysterious path. i will always be agnostic, but on that afternoon, george and i played pretend. i agreed tacitly on all things eve and job, words sprung up in my mouth.
"george, jesus and god and paul done told you and told you, HE comes from within, HE don't give you more'n you can take, HE watchin' for you even if you feel so alone you'se like to die from it!" george thought this was a beautiful thing to hear from a woman, because, he said, we are "holy above holy, spiritual-like and all."
george made me smile at the odd beauty of things as much as he made me sad that i really am a liar, an actress, a fraud. and now the crazy man is here in the cafe, and i wonder if he is a gift earned by the tawdry girl in me, a present for somehow killing the young bravery of yesterday. something broke between dusk and dawn and i am who i was again, someone only on one plane; i cannot change, i cannot transcend.
and so is the discord as the crazy shuffles around, as madness and fear and death circle, as i wait for one or all to choose me.
i wrote the other day about the scary christians. yesterday, an obese woman talking in a high falsetto put her head up against the door of the bathroom stall i was occupying and asked if i'd ever met the "berber" people. she then went about doing her business, luckily in her own stall, humming and moaning like michael jackson on helium. eek.
then today, a man followed me from the parking lot to the door of the cafe. i usually don't make eye contact with, well, anyone, but someone ran into me with her bag and i turned around to see the culprit. behind me lumbered a burly, petulant man, lantern-jawed and baby-faced. smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. "you, i know you!" he muttered as i hurried away. "you're the girl with the broken glasses, you're the girl that stood me up, mumble mumble, come back here, mumble."
i looked up just now and he was walking in and out of the men's room, his eyes vacant empty lots, begging for someone to take up residence there. he walked along a row of tables, eating a pile of free sample french bread out of his right hand. he paced, did a stiff about face, and paced back up again. please don't see me, please don't see me, i implored silently. see? my glasses aren't broken, they're right here on my head, please don't see me, please don't.
i often wonder, as i progress through periods of increasing interest in, if not god, then divinity, if i meet people like this by random chance. i have an obsessively heavy hand in my fate, or so i think. i am always waiting for it, making it, working with it. in south carolina, i was aching and wanting and aching some more. longing for i don't know what. i was on sarah's front stairs one day, smoking a cigarette, when a man came up to me and started preaching the gospel. he was a wiry black man, missing his front teeth. george williams, aged 44 years, former crack/heroine/sex/booze addict. george williams who done found the lord. i didn't want to argue with him, and i was tired of being an agnostic on a mysterious path. i will always be agnostic, but on that afternoon, george and i played pretend. i agreed tacitly on all things eve and job, words sprung up in my mouth.
"george, jesus and god and paul done told you and told you, HE comes from within, HE don't give you more'n you can take, HE watchin' for you even if you feel so alone you'se like to die from it!" george thought this was a beautiful thing to hear from a woman, because, he said, we are "holy above holy, spiritual-like and all."
george made me smile at the odd beauty of things as much as he made me sad that i really am a liar, an actress, a fraud. and now the crazy man is here in the cafe, and i wonder if he is a gift earned by the tawdry girl in me, a present for somehow killing the young bravery of yesterday. something broke between dusk and dawn and i am who i was again, someone only on one plane; i cannot change, i cannot transcend.
and so is the discord as the crazy shuffles around, as madness and fear and death circle, as i wait for one or all to choose me.