jolie laide

jolie laide

I started this when I lived in Brooklyn and struggled for grace in a city that grants moments of beauty and ugliness breathtakingly close to one another. Now I live in a place where things are a different kind of ugly and the beauty is pedestrian. I struggle with that.

9.19.2006

This morning in the shower I can't stop thinking about running away--about joining the Peace Corps, or moving to Thailand, or dissolving my life down to a tiny whisper unheard in this loud city. When I get to the subway, the local train hasn't come for a while. The platform is filled with my neighbors, not too crowded, they have arranged themselves, as if by prior agreement, with even spacing, respecting invisible personal kingdoms. I wait for the train at the far end of the station and as I walk down the platform I note each person and each person is so beautiful. They are all dressed in their hope for the day: shirts are still crisp; hair is still neat; lipstick is still fresh. Noone has stress lines on their face, there is no fussing, no arguing. It is quiet, with people reading, listening to music, simply waiting. It was so simple and so extraordinary and I looked each one in the face and smiled.

8 Comments:

Blogger famjaztique said...

Just testing

12:32 AM  
Blogger famjaztique said...

Hmmm, well, it seems as though the glitch has been fixed, or else I blindly stumbled onto a path that allows me to comment again here.

I get that compulsion to run away far too often. Sometimes, the compulsion feels less like a desire to flee to "somewhere" and more of a desire to just simply "let go". To relax, to let things be.

12:34 AM  
Blogger slickaphonic said...

I thought NYorkers didn't smile.

well now I'm just thoroughly confused.

And enchanted, of course.

11:18 AM  
Blogger ttractor said...

well, either I'm a NYer, since I was born here, or I'm not, since I grew up in Oklahoma. But I do smile, early and often! I think perhaps people think I am crazy, but sometimes, really, life feels good, balanced, managable, and it turns up the corners of my mouth.

11:50 AM  
Blogger ttractor said...

famjam (I am glad we are working in accord! I would have been sad to keep mising you), yeah, I think this is what I mean. Sometimes I think I would like to simply let go of my ego, my desires, my hopes for my own self, and just devote my life to service. It would be a relief to stop struggling against my limitations, to stop trying to become, to stop searching for the connection to others I want, and to just iron it all out and give myself over to the greater good.

I think you know what I'm talking about!

11:55 AM  
Blogger slickaphonic said...

oh, i forgot to share with you my favorite line from an outkast song:

humble as a mumble in the jungle of shouts and screams

(in case you find dissolving to a whisper uncomfortable...)

3:20 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

O ttractor - I share this dream

to dissolve into whispers - to do good work

perhaps I will

6:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do know precisely what you mean dahling.

8:19 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home