A face

A face I saw that arrested my attention: On the bus the other day, an older lady dressed in purple silk. Her hair was pulled back in a neat silver gray bun, her skin mapped with the lines of old age worn well. On her ears, diamonds wink like constellations. On her nose, more diamonds. I can imagine her in the mornings, eyes closed in devotion, fresh sandalwood paste on her forehead, a small heap of moist jasmine laid at the feet of her deity...

Goals

In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.

Lost in Translation

The best ending in a movie that I can remember? Lost in Translation.
This movie is visually lyrical, from capturing the neon-soaked, almost hallucinative Tokyo cityscape to the loneliness and alienation of the two protagonists.
The ending is a bitter-sweet stroke of sheer inspiration.

I'm in the Soup

This is an exchange between Bertie Wooster and Gussie Fink-Nottle from "The Code of the Woosters."

"This is frightful, Bertie."
"Not too good, no."
"I'm in the soup."
"Up to the thorax."
"What's to be done?"
"I don't know."
"Can't you think of anything?"
"Nothing. We must put our trust in a higher power."
"Consult Jeeves, you mean?"

Oh, only if we all had a Jeeves in our lives to turn to! Where are you, Jeeves, when we need you?

Dreaming Tree

Standing here
The old man said to me
Long before these crowded streets
Here stood my dreaming tree
Below it he would sit
For hours at a time
Now progress takes away
What forever took to find
Now he's falling hard
He feels the falling dark
How he longs to be
Beneath his dreaming tree
~Dave Matthews Band, "The Dreaming Tree"

Change

We do not change as we grow older, we just become more clearly ourselves.

Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

~Pablo Neruda

Under the willows

That's me on a post-coffee poolside lounge. Saturday mornings were always so peaceful. You had the whole pool and deck and the willows all to yourself... Tallahassee, November 2002

Do you remember?

Clocks by Coldplay
The No Doubt version of Its my Life
White Flag, Dido
The first cut is the deepest, Sheryl Crow
You don't know my name, Alicia Keys
Calderona (forgot the artist)

~Songs that bring back memories of Washington, DC. Sometimes it's like being back there physically, back in my friend's silver-gray Corolla driving down Route 50...

Star-laced wings

Dreams, inconsistent angel things.
Horses bred with star-laced wings.
But it's so hard to make them fly, fly, fly.
These wings beat the night sky 'bove the town.

~From "We Have Forgotten" by Sixpence None the Richer. They can make melancholy sound so good.

Opinions

It is not advisable, James, to venture onsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarassment of discovering their exact value to your listener.
~From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand