Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Feb. 17, 2003: Random Intervals

I always have a small notebook or a mini tape recorder with me, and I jot down little observations of things I come across. Many of them aren't strong enough to write an entire piece about, but they fascinate me nonetheless.

Since I'm snowed in, I thought I'd share a few of those.

- Heard on the train: "He's been thinking about coconut shrimp."

- Autumn, behind Independence Hall: Two invisible giants play leaf chess; one pushing game pieces (leaves) one way, then the other, another.

- Frustrations at a job I once had: Where is the sense in: Cropping the wheelchair out of a photo for a brochure on the disability exhibit? Changing punctuation to make something grammatically incorrect? All the other times I'm supposed to say, "Yessir, massa! Right away, sir?" The Emperor has no clothes, dammit!

- Poster on a bus:

In the middle of
the journey of our life
I find myself
astray, a dark wood
where the straight road had been
lost sight of."

-Dante's "The Inferno."

- Authors I've known and loved: Garrison Keillor, Dave Barry, Toni Morrison, Erma Bombeck, Douglas Adams.

- I thought I saw Patch Adams on the 113.

The boy across from me says his friends tell him he doesn't know how to curse right. "Shit, that's something to be proud of!"

It's not him - Patch, I mean. Too ordinary. No fork in his ear, or clown pants. Still, at first glance I was nearly convinced.

- T-shirt seen: "Walk with Jesus: Exercise your faith."

- "No riders" sign on Stroehman's bread truck — Do people hitch rides from bread trucks? "Hey, man. You got any bread?"

- How can I explain to you that I'm a dharma bum? Living off words, juicing on moments, awash in the every-thought.

- Too much in life is aftermath. Too much is owed to what came before. We spend hours in memory, and are dead in the present as we play host to a ghosthoard of time thieves.

- On the bus: A woman testing out the different rings on her cell phone. From spacy, to triumphant, Looney Toons to classic — the high tone so irritating it gets a few riders laughing. At this absurd Mexican Hat Dance, war cry, Indy 500, hockey game singsong as the gray box of sky spills by outside and the purple serenader finally exits the bus.

- On the bus: A young red-haired woman pats her baby, who looks like a shrunken version of herself, the large, deep brown eyes the same size. The child's hair springs dark from her head, innocent of dye. The young woman, when she got on, was sucking the baby's pink pacifier.

- Seeing the Moody Blues at the Tower Theater: Not a single person in here is on acid. Except for a few 20-somethings, who came with their parents, I'm probably the youngest one here. I find myself wanting to transport everybody back about 35 years and see the sun come shining through their hair. But even though they've got a few decades behind them now, there's something young about this crowd. These people grew up, got jobs, had kids, but they never got old. They're my people.

The ceiling here is lit with stars, and there are gold curtains hung on the proscenium arch, behind the speakers. There's a buzz in this room, maybe a slight under-tinge of incense rising from all those decades ago.

I'll never forget the many hours I played The Moody Blues, gazed out over those quiet, green hills and knew some day I'd be going somewhere beautiful.

I saw a guy with a blue fluorescent necklace. And I think they're playing Guns & Roses on the loudspeaker. Why? For the contrast?

One guy across the room looks like my yoga instructor, from many years ago. So many people I've known and walked away from, not realizing it was good-bye. So many people I can't remember all their names.

I'm so buzzed! There are blue lights on the spare stage.

Is it time, then, for us to take over? My generation of slackers and indigents? Are we really any different? I can't say where I belong: it shifts and morphs.

How dare they age? I looked up to them, to sunshine and dance and heavy summer. And yet, there's beauty, too, in red and gold, in bronze crispness. And here I fly after...

- "Redemption songs, all I ever had." — Bob Marley

- "We're living on Bizarro Earth: Ted Kennedy is the voice of reason and Germany is against war."— The Daily Show

- "Super profundo on the early eve of your day." — Waking Life

Moral:
A snowy day is a blank page on which to write your thoughts.

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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