A moment's grace
I work in San Francisco. Most days, I ride the Caltrain to work and back. Sometimes, when I have a social engagement in the East Bay, I walk a mile or so to the BART station and ride that into whichever station suits -- one of the Oakland stations if I'm visiting folks there, or Fremont for another group. Some days back, I was walking through a station, I don't remember if it was Montgomery or Powell, heading towards the gates.
The way the station is laid out, after you come down the stairs, there's an open area with corridors open off the far wall. The corridors lead deeper into the station, to where the ticket machines and the gates are. In this section, though, there's only the wall ahead and the stairs behind, and an open section of floor.
That day, I saw a man playing a violin and a woman dancing. She was wearing a bluish-green sweater, jeans, and a hip scarf. Her hair was black and curly and her smile came and went as she moved to the sound. He had sandy blond hair, thinning a bit on top, and dark clothes, his face bent over the instrument. His eyes would be sometimes open, sometimes closed. I remember his shoes were rather nice, shiny black loafers. I stopped for a while and watched them both. The violin took me away. I was there for several minutes and the world vanished. They were both drawing in the air, she with her arms and hips and smile, he with the strings and bow, and I didn't know what shape they were making, only that I liked it.
I'm bringing you ashes, here, and trying to tell you what fire is like by pointing at the little pile of dark dirt in my hand. In the moment, it was glorious beyond capture. In memory, it still has the power to shorten my breath. In words, across the bridge of language and distance, what is it I've brought you? I have no idea. Ashes, most likely, and if I've been fortunate a spark lingers.
At first I was deliberate in including both performers in my observation. It seemed gauche to devote my attention solely to the pretty dancer, disrespectful. Soon enough, such a consideration became irrelevant. If you know me more than in passing, you know I'm a lusty man. I'm appreciative of the manifold joys of carnality, and the sincere appreciation of a beautiful human is a common enough event. After a while, though, that concern faded into irrelevance. Movement and grace, sound and craft, took me out of myself, and I found my own eyes opening and closing at irregular intervals, looking at the shapes her hands made in the air, sometimes listening only to the strains of the violin as it sped up.
It was a timeless moment, and of course it couldn't last. I had a train to catch, an evening's worth of things to do. Some times are more dense than others. A clock might have told five or seven minutes. It was longer than that, and also an instant. It is still happening, in a way. I feel the echoes.
The way the station is laid out, after you come down the stairs, there's an open area with corridors open off the far wall. The corridors lead deeper into the station, to where the ticket machines and the gates are. In this section, though, there's only the wall ahead and the stairs behind, and an open section of floor.
That day, I saw a man playing a violin and a woman dancing. She was wearing a bluish-green sweater, jeans, and a hip scarf. Her hair was black and curly and her smile came and went as she moved to the sound. He had sandy blond hair, thinning a bit on top, and dark clothes, his face bent over the instrument. His eyes would be sometimes open, sometimes closed. I remember his shoes were rather nice, shiny black loafers. I stopped for a while and watched them both. The violin took me away. I was there for several minutes and the world vanished. They were both drawing in the air, she with her arms and hips and smile, he with the strings and bow, and I didn't know what shape they were making, only that I liked it.
I'm bringing you ashes, here, and trying to tell you what fire is like by pointing at the little pile of dark dirt in my hand. In the moment, it was glorious beyond capture. In memory, it still has the power to shorten my breath. In words, across the bridge of language and distance, what is it I've brought you? I have no idea. Ashes, most likely, and if I've been fortunate a spark lingers.
At first I was deliberate in including both performers in my observation. It seemed gauche to devote my attention solely to the pretty dancer, disrespectful. Soon enough, such a consideration became irrelevant. If you know me more than in passing, you know I'm a lusty man. I'm appreciative of the manifold joys of carnality, and the sincere appreciation of a beautiful human is a common enough event. After a while, though, that concern faded into irrelevance. Movement and grace, sound and craft, took me out of myself, and I found my own eyes opening and closing at irregular intervals, looking at the shapes her hands made in the air, sometimes listening only to the strains of the violin as it sped up.
It was a timeless moment, and of course it couldn't last. I had a train to catch, an evening's worth of things to do. Some times are more dense than others. A clock might have told five or seven minutes. It was longer than that, and also an instant. It is still happening, in a way. I feel the echoes.