'From the room's long wood window. Forge of the sky being lit and cooled moments by wind and rain. And I write here and dying is the scariest thing and it happens to every single one of us. A collection of thousands of years of trying to move past the fear of never existing, only for a small fraction of insignificant time. Thats all we are doing. I write in fractions and scribbles. Like turning here from a main road off into an alley and then up a hill and back down. Scotland's Sunset Room.'
I'm sitting on the floor. Between a radiator and a wooden desk. With a high window that overlooks Edinburgh. The castle is far off in the distance. The sky is tones of white with gray clouds and its windy and cold. The day has been poor and I walked around lost and aimless, a lot like the wind. Thinking about how to assess all my time traveling to put it into words. Trying to place all the times, thoughts, people, and places in a written orderly form.
Mostly though I have been sleeping little, and waking early. Rising with the sunlight and staring at my blank computer screen. Ticking away the seconds before the people wake. Its almost been a week of my travels. My legs are stiff and worn. I have showered once and the wax in my ears is beginning to thicken and make plopping sounds in my head if i press down and then let go of the inner part of my ear.
London is old. As I walked around it, staring at the tall brick buildings and the steel gray sky, all I could think about was the amount of time that has passed in this place. And contrasting it with Las Vegas. Which, is as new as new gets. Tom and I were discussing it and he remarked a strong desire to be in Europe, just to feel the sense of age and time.
It permeates strongly out of the buildings, the moss, the rain, and light. And all the sounds that envelop--cars and creaks and sounds of terrible things of screams and the death and agony; of people blasting their music across halls and across rooms and girls shrieking and babies crying; the names shouted and accents confused and the sounds of cash registers and reams of refugee in food and menus and lists and take-away--all plummeting me into the world. I get really lost in my head in all these new places. So lost I stand in the middle of sidewalks and streets just staring at things putting them away and people look at me and walk by shaking their heads confused, muttering. Or they get angry that I hold them all up and brush past me. But i still stand there knowing that its important or me to keep staring and understanding and figuring out the places around me so that it doesn't escape me. Adding it all to this huge thing inside of me, all into my subconscious and the dark and my shadow and being. All of that.
Trying to determine exactly everything that is going on. And trying to soak all of it up like sponges in the sea.
My first day the train from the airport to London was broken. I wandered around and fell in love with two women in my head. Which I tend to do. Where one was in front of me on the plane and the other standing near as the screen flickered on and off telling all us where to go for luggage. And I am always curious if anyone else does that. They see someone and they just write a person. And as I go through airports, streets, coffee shops, bookstores, and countryside. I see how beautiful they are. Long dark hair and bright eyes and slim legs and we end up sharing a cigarette as the luggage rolls on by and the sun wavers and we ride the bus and the green and ivy all envelops destroyed fences and she traces paths along a riverside. Kissing in moments of nothing. Cheesy romance, high thoughts, sharing conversation, croissants and coffee and smiles all the time. Life worth living. Sharing. Arcs of substance dripping from her lips from words and from mine of words and motions and all the subtle nuances forming relationships. Like that. And like that I found my way onto the bus that was the replacement for the train.
I listened to TV on the Radio and tuned out. Hat on my head and the green and swell of clouds as they poured slowly onto England's massive body of fertile land while the bus sped along at a clipping pace. After minutes I finally figured out the oppositeness of driving in the U.K. And now walking I make sure to walk alongside the left side instead of the right. As people seemed to tangle up with me.
The train after the bus was pleasant but confusing. I'm always at a state of nervous flux when I am in a new place trying to get to another new place and the mode of transportation is one that relies on switches and maps, lines on a white space that show me stations and stops and I must clue in to understand rails and things that were never once a 'thing' back home. However, people are generally very pleasant. And when the sky is bright, there is no wind and the day is weather for walking they help in every manner possible.
The train took me from outside to the inside--where I saw the gypsy trailer parks and then the ravages and slums of London to the station and center of traffic and populace. Liverpool Street Station is a magnificent structure of wires, glass, brick and light that form a a ceiling and structure like something from one of Monet's paintings of train stations. The crowded atmosphere made me smile and I found my way onto the tube to Reim. Confused I managed passing the large British library, past a nasty man who worked the front desk of Reim's building who did not believe that she even lived there, and finally to my destination.
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Reim's place is typical of an old city (I remember Jake and I sharing a conversation about how we would live in San Francisco even if we had to live in a closet of someone else's home; only big enough for us to sleep. It would be worth it just or the experience and ability to live in vibrant thriving city like that. That's what Reim's is like). A shared stall of showers. Small kitchen and pantry. Long doors and the sound of wind pouring through the rooms even if the jointed windows are all closed and shut tight. I stayed the first night on her bed and then from there on slept in the hallway of their room. Which is just a small space, with two doors. One door leading to their room, the other door leading to the main hallway of the 12th floor. I crouched on her ledge near the window once and felt the breeze of London air and looked out and talked to her. Sleeping on the floor in darkness was an experience a lot like a symphony.
With moments of silence, pure, and dark. The subtle sounds of piano and violins. And the crashing of the brass as a friend or roommate would open a door and light would crash in. Swallows and birds and gulls and waves all pouring through and covering my mind in unknown noise. And then again back, away from the crescendo and the finale. The birds falling out of the air dying like leaden filled raindrops. All on the ground, then finally turned to dust and some feathers clinging to my face and hair and falling asleep.
I awoke and spent some time in the washroom brushing my teeth and staring at the old white tub and the sounds of water and showering. I left in a hurry. I love the idea of living in the city. And being able to leap forward and be on the street in the bustle of all the people. Its an activity in itself. Wandering and following instinct and intuition towards a cafe or alley. Reading on a step or stone. Absorbing the sun. I walked along in a t-shirt and jeans. Listening to Ratatat, The Strokes, The Arcade Fire, and Albert Hammond Jr. on my ipod.
Along the second journey which was just me, I walked into a crypt of St. Andrew's church and discovered an art exhibition of Mexican Avant Garde Artists. In the crypt, along with the dead, there were screens with projectors showing rats running across. Stills of shadows and candles dripping wax. Sounds of people crying and mumbles and I found a dark room with a chair and lit candles and the dead resting peacefully. Where I started off blankly for a long time but couldn't think of anything meaningful. So i thought the dead were really dead here. So long cemented in these tombs of brick and mortar. Taken care of by old men with an old religion. I left.
The theme of dead was rising as the sun hid beneath clouds. Walking more lost and in circles and wide arcs from Reim's I found a graveyard wishing silently to myself the night before that I would like to see an old graveyard. This one had the bones of William Blake resting coldly in the green moss covered ground. Bunhill Fields. Away from the graveyard I went into one pub looking for a meal of fish and chips. But the two men were confused at my accent and then told me that they only had sandwiches. An alley I walked through. And I was getting cold in my t-shirt. I stumbled upon an American Apparel. Which, I had also been secretly searching for. Out of nowhere it appeared and I explored the London store. Which was nice but the women not as attractive. I bought a hoodie and a shirt and left again. From here I managed to walk all the way to Liverpool Street Station.
A bit of a distance. In the sun and wind. Tall buildings from both sides. Shooting up like a small New York Skyline. I road the train to King's Cross. I took a nap in the sunlight on Reim's bed listening to Badly Drawn Boy and warmed my toes scribbling notes about the days and sights and sounds.
"I'm lying in Reim's bed. The window across from me closed but I can see the clouds drifting by. I woke up this morning and left the dormitories and just started walking. From the top of the building I can see a large Ferris Wheel. It lights up at night."
-from red Goethe notebook
At night Reim and I traveled to Brick Lane. A long street of Bengali shops that serve delicious curry amidst Las Vegas style Neon lights, Muslims running to prayer, graffiti and men milling about who try convincingly to get passerby's into their particular shop. I hung about looking like a drug dealer. Watching the men go to prayer as Reim went herself and came running back in rushed excitement for me to come with her. Inside I observed them praying and from the top in the dark down into the light of the bottom floor. Then rushed out as the men finished and came out themselves. We ate curry in a place lit by neon blue. Lamb curry on rice and sighed in contentment. I wondered how God factors into relationships between people. How those of faith even live amongst those disbelievers. And I am a non-believer and wonder ever woefully that this world is a real place and the earth is worms and nothing after death. Am I just a vagrant or thief. A man of no grace in the eyes of those with faith. And strangely not resolving it but it sitting there in my mind. I couldn't figure it out.
"The street is empty, it gets quiet, and all I hear are the hums of the neon lights as all the Muslims are in the Jamee Masjid."-from red Goethe notebook
China Town and Leicester Square colored in neon like Time's Square. The theaters pouring in and out with the faithful watchers of the art. Red lanterns spilling from the sky. We saw ducks hanging from every window and Reim was overjoyed at the sights and presence of the place. Seeing her fully content and happy as she almost danced along snapping pictures and I smiled hands in pockets and took to myself; thinking of my father overseas a long time ago when he was young. I thought about food and when we would eat here. And we walked along cobblestone streets. It rained and tormented my face. Wandered about in hoods and hats and saw Big Ben in its brilliance. Its very large for a clock. We rode the train back and I collapsed into the dead of night. While Reim watched Babel and I laid there listening to the elevators going up and down and drifting away into sleep.
From here I am going to take a pause in writing this all down. The sky outside of the flat has lost all brightness and now is just whistling wind that tells me its cold out and the steeples and eaves of the buildings are dark and give me the chills. I want to read for a bit and lie staring at the ceiling. I hurt my toe last night in-between moving around like a thief in the night and drinking pints of Stella Artois at various pubs. It was bleeding at night. Now it throbs a little. I also feel strangely sad. And I think its the rain.
I think that people are terribly sad. And sometimes terribly happy. And in-between they are moving toward one or the other. But they don't really know that they are always moving. And trying to desperately to hold onto things will watch them slip and fall. And walking about so much, feeling old walls and seeing faces and eyes I think that it should be what it is. Lying on the highland grass above all of Edinburgh, I told the wind, shouting at it that fine. Its windy. Blow me away with you. We will go someplace together.
And I fell asleep dreaming that someday there will be another person there. And we will go someplace together. And that it will be made out of all those things, that we are, and all of this that I am sipping, tasting, seeing, touching, touching her face will make that place. And all of hers will strike together like hammers in a hot forge. The day is dead and will rise tomorrow. And hunger never goes away but ceases for a little bit. Describing our lot in life completely.
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not in the mood to throw up pictures. too many pictures. someone deal with all these photos.
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