...Multi-Colored Mirrors...
I could listen to this song all day. I could listen to this song all night.
The only benchmarks that show any growth or aging on my part is pain and deterioration; My muscles and joints ache while my parts and circuits crumble. I am less mature now than I was a decade ago. I had plans and ideals, opinions and interests, which I've traded for boredom, indifference, lethargy. I used to tap tap tap long into the night, I used to have friends, and I used to care. Now I do not. I tolerate the company of other humans when I must and pine for it while I sit and solitarily stare down the hour hand of the clock. I kid myself that "they" are boring or lackluster, that I need new people or new places or new experiences, but I am the common factor: I am boring and lackluster.
I cower in fear of more pain. I type slowly now, deliberately, and check my spelling constantly. The words and ideas don't flow the way I was once accustomed to. Everything comes in chunks. Fragments. I am frustrated and frustrating. My senses are dulled - nothing shocks or offends me. I pray I never lose my sense of humor.
I am glad Christmas is coming - My life, childlike, still spins around this holiday. I love opening gifts and love coming up with gifts for others that are "just right." I can't verbalize or put into writing the accompanying hand motion for those quotes, other than to say that it involves the middle and index finger touching the tip of the thumb while ringy and pinky curl into the palm. There's nothing quite like that thrill of knowing you've been clever and observant enough to deliver a gift that will suprise and delight the recipient. I have not been successful in that endeavour this year, though; I am fairly well-pleased with the gifts I've mustered for the family and friends, and think they'll all be well-received, but none of them really *Pop!* this year. "It's hard to hit home-runs." Singles and doubles will have to satisfy me this Christmas, and I'll hope to hit harder next year.
And speaking of the new year, I am (possibly) more excited for its arrival than I have ever been. I feel its weight from here, the 19th. I can't help but feel that my "bum" year will come to a close, that I'll find some of the things I'm looking for in the new year - Inspiration, ambition. I pray for confidence and maturity, self-control, Growth, Progress.
I should embrace a policy of never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never looking at pictures on The FaceBook.
My family and I went to a screening of "It's A Wonderful Life" at the Apollo Theater on Friday. The experience was beyond words. I wept through a majority of the film and must acknowledge that it is my Favorite Film. No strings are attached, no qualifiers: I've finally realized that it stands alone, winter or summer, good moods or bad, atop the pyramid. It was also the first time I have been back to that theater since I played my very first rock-and-roll show there with Toph and Sky. I quite literally "grew up" on that tiny stage that night, under the blue and red lights, and made up my mind that music must be my pursuit. Maybe it wasn't growing up at all: I'd rather not think about that night as the first of many missteps. Either way, the theater in my memory was much, much larger than it is in reality, my legs were on the verge of mutiny by the end of the movie, and I can not articulate how glad I am that we went.
My desk is a mess, my room is a mess, more than a month of laundry remains stacked and un-hung, and it is Cold down here. I miss my bike. I miss sharing Thinking.
From January 6th, 2004: "May you awake tomorrow to find yourself surrounded by a beautiful life."