Saudade
What do you call a writer who doesn't write? This sounds like the setup for a not very good joke, but I can't think of a punch line because the question usually starts me sobbing, which is distracting, especially when telling a joke.
I sat in front of James Joyce's indecipherable Finnegan's Wake, trying for a minute to determine what he was thinking when he wrote it, when I realized what a stupid question that was, and that the answer was the writing itself. I could try writing words as they come to me, but I always feel a need to refine them before I let anyone see them. Unless contrived, the words passing through my mind are all echoes of fragments of things heard or read in the past: '…macadamia, gazebo…', '…a yo-yo and the Indianapolis Colts…', '…a dollar for corn…'
Anatoly: Kevin, what are you doing?
Kevin: Oh, nothing, really.
Anatoly: Can I come in?
I made an extended noise of uncertainty until I added enough to the small amount of clothing I had been wearing to open the door and not mind my father seeing me. How's that for unnecessary mental imagery? Though perhaps not a bad starting point for a story - ones that talk at length about clothing, and the putting on and removal of, tend to be considerably more popular than those that do not, and perhaps I have been in the second category too long.
Anatoly: I just wanted to talk to you about this Saturday.
Discussions with my father rarely take very long, and if they do, are rarely pleasant, so I wouldn't have minded this one taking place through a wall, but apparently he wanted to see my face every once in a while. Since taking up an overnight shift at work and sleeping during the late morning and early afternoon, I didn't see much of my family. And that may, though I wouldn't have said so, have been the idea.
Saturday was a performance. My father just wanted to discuss the transportation to and from the event - in not owning a vehicle, I have been much more dependent on my family this summer than I was planning to be. For the event itself, my father and I, and two of his friends, would don silly hats and play Mexican music, while my father made a fool of himself butchering even the most basic of Spanish phrases, at least to anyone such as myself who has some understanding of the language. It's something there is apparently a market for, as this was not the first time I had been asked to do such a thing, and it's not the sort of thing I would do for free. But it was the first time I had been asked to do such a thing on a boat.
In theory, it was going to be an entertaining evening. In practice, we couldn't hear ourselves playing our instruments over the engines of the boat, our audience was a company picnic of lawyers who were more suspicious than appreciative of our presence, and the woman who hired us wanted to know why we weren't playing the macarena, or Ricky Martin, or why we were unable to get lawyers to dance. We could sooner encourage a cat to jump in the river.
Harold: Fortunately, we have these hats, so that when we get seasick, we just turn them over, and…
He made a vomiting motion and sound toward his hat, which he was now holding in his hand. He then replaced it on his head, assuring any surrounding lawyers that he was not, in fact, vomiting, or else terribly unhygienic.
Harold: I've never liked boats.
Kevin: No? I want to live on a boat, some day.
I'm not sure why I said that, but I did. It's not something I had given much thought to before, but standing there on a commercial cruise ship in the Niagara River, I could sort of see what sailors in old stories meant by the freedom granted by the seas. And it was awfully welcoming. I thought back to two years ago when a teacher had offered to take me sailing, and cursed myself for not pursuing the matter.
Kevin: Well, do you think these people will hire us back next year?
Anatoly: Not if I have anything to say about it.
We finished a final chorus of Alla En El Rancho Grande and put our instruments and hats away. We had fooled them again, my father would say. Well, we had tried.
I sat in front of James Joyce's indecipherable Finnegan's Wake, trying for a minute to determine what he was thinking when he wrote it, when I realized what a stupid question that was, and that the answer was the writing itself. I could try writing words as they come to me, but I always feel a need to refine them before I let anyone see them. Unless contrived, the words passing through my mind are all echoes of fragments of things heard or read in the past: '…macadamia, gazebo…', '…a yo-yo and the Indianapolis Colts…', '…a dollar for corn…'
Anatoly: Kevin, what are you doing?
Kevin: Oh, nothing, really.
Anatoly: Can I come in?
I made an extended noise of uncertainty until I added enough to the small amount of clothing I had been wearing to open the door and not mind my father seeing me. How's that for unnecessary mental imagery? Though perhaps not a bad starting point for a story - ones that talk at length about clothing, and the putting on and removal of, tend to be considerably more popular than those that do not, and perhaps I have been in the second category too long.
Anatoly: I just wanted to talk to you about this Saturday.
Discussions with my father rarely take very long, and if they do, are rarely pleasant, so I wouldn't have minded this one taking place through a wall, but apparently he wanted to see my face every once in a while. Since taking up an overnight shift at work and sleeping during the late morning and early afternoon, I didn't see much of my family. And that may, though I wouldn't have said so, have been the idea.
Saturday was a performance. My father just wanted to discuss the transportation to and from the event - in not owning a vehicle, I have been much more dependent on my family this summer than I was planning to be. For the event itself, my father and I, and two of his friends, would don silly hats and play Mexican music, while my father made a fool of himself butchering even the most basic of Spanish phrases, at least to anyone such as myself who has some understanding of the language. It's something there is apparently a market for, as this was not the first time I had been asked to do such a thing, and it's not the sort of thing I would do for free. But it was the first time I had been asked to do such a thing on a boat.
In theory, it was going to be an entertaining evening. In practice, we couldn't hear ourselves playing our instruments over the engines of the boat, our audience was a company picnic of lawyers who were more suspicious than appreciative of our presence, and the woman who hired us wanted to know why we weren't playing the macarena, or Ricky Martin, or why we were unable to get lawyers to dance. We could sooner encourage a cat to jump in the river.
Harold: Fortunately, we have these hats, so that when we get seasick, we just turn them over, and…
He made a vomiting motion and sound toward his hat, which he was now holding in his hand. He then replaced it on his head, assuring any surrounding lawyers that he was not, in fact, vomiting, or else terribly unhygienic.
Harold: I've never liked boats.
Kevin: No? I want to live on a boat, some day.
I'm not sure why I said that, but I did. It's not something I had given much thought to before, but standing there on a commercial cruise ship in the Niagara River, I could sort of see what sailors in old stories meant by the freedom granted by the seas. And it was awfully welcoming. I thought back to two years ago when a teacher had offered to take me sailing, and cursed myself for not pursuing the matter.
Kevin: Well, do you think these people will hire us back next year?
Anatoly: Not if I have anything to say about it.
We finished a final chorus of Alla En El Rancho Grande and put our instruments and hats away. We had fooled them again, my father would say. Well, we had tried.