About A Boy

I napped and took my book to bed, left it carelessly by my pillow. When I woke up I saw your eye in close up, looking straight at me. Though not your eye, an eye, on a life sized face on the front cover. An eye that happens to hail from the same continent, maybe even country, as yours does. It is larger than yours and female, the eyebrow higher and more defined. I could list a million differences. Yet exactly like yours too, shockingly so, watching me with a kind of intimate insistence. Like when you’re surprised, say, when I misunderstand something you said and your eyes open wide at my reaction. I closed my own a few times more and opened them, wanting to revisit the sensation of waking up next to you. Wondering if this is as close as I’ll ever get to you again.

A Saturday

The weather report said rain and I don’t have an umbrella. So I stumbled out of bed and into my clothes, intent on getting my shopping done before the deluge. I did, and came home with the boring, humdrum stuff one needs and one croissant au beurre for breakfast. Why haven’t I bought one all this time? I have no idea, but it’s definitely not the last one I’m buying. Yumm. I did notice, though, that money goes really fast over here. Maybe it’s just me, and I’m still shopping in all the wrong places. A new arrival, or ‘Johny Just Come’ in Nigeria speak.

Then a shower and back to bed, my normal way of being’s out the window somewhere, possibly hanging in a tree. Caught up on some e-mingling –is there an umbrella term for email/chat/voice chat/blogs and all that yet? Someone should come up with something– and a split decision to go see a movie despite the rain-but-no-umbrella conundrum. There’s one cinema that does VO (original version as opposed to dubbed. OV, it would logically follow, in English. Oh joy! I didn’t see a single movie while I was in Spain, because of the dubbing). I sang Rihanna’s song all the way there. Ella ella eh eh…

The movie showing was a Japanese one called Tokyo Sonata. I’ve been having a bout of Nihon blues of late, can’t quite get it out of my head that I was supposed to be there right now , so I thought I’d submerge myself for a couple of hours. It did the trick, I came home on another planet, so to speak. The movie wasn’t a masterpiece or anything, and actually a tad long, but it had a quality to it that got to me. A kind of turning over a new leaf while sticking with what you’ve got in life, even though it’s far from perfect. Which was reinforced by Dizzy’s mention of the song ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. Tell me about it. (Is that a semi private blog, Dizzy? I wasn’t sure so I didn’t link it…).

And now I’m on the sofa in a living room that smells of my incense and temporarily feels like home, having some hot chocolate and some cookies and feeling quite alright but a tad out of it/much much better than yesterday (what a godawful day that was)/wishing things were different but understanding why they can’t be/wishing they were different all the same, fuck it/pretty clueless about the future but in an I’ll-see-what-happens rather than an angsty way/warm and cosy thanks to that hot chocolate. Mmm.

I should blog like this more often. Why do I insist on always making sense?

And Another One

I met another fortune teller, or rather a psychic man. Though this one couldn’t just see my past like the previous one, but also my future. I’ve walked past him countless times, an old man sitting on a stone bench near the church, facing the sea. This time he spoke to me and told me about myself. I guess I’m writing it down because I believed him. I know. But maybe you had to be there…

He said he could see my life up until 85 years old without any major physical illnesses. And he said I will never find love. I’m sorry, he said, but it’s life. Love is not for everyone. But, he said, you will have many beautiful moments in your life. Because you look for them, and also because you’re lucky to be there when they happen. So your life will feel full. I didn’t feel particularly sad when he told me, though a single tear rolled down my cheek. Maybe because I wasn’t that surprised to hear it. He repeated it many times: you won’t find love.

Then he took me for a coffee, though I had tea and he a Cuba Libre. He was very particular about his drink. We talked some more and he offered to meet me twice a week to ‘try and help me’. Whatever that means. I’d like to believe in the kindness of strangers, and the fact is I can use all the help I get. I’m also curious, I guess.

Though I’d like to pass the evening off as an intriguing chance encounter, the truth is I’m quite shaken by the things he said. Not the love bit, necessarily. I have more pressing concerns than that. And I guess I wish help could come from such an unlikely corner…

Displacement

Last night I was writing an email to the sound of bagpipes coming from somewhere outside and it all seemed very natural until I thought, hey I don’t live in Scotland anymore! Weird how this kind of thing happens to me frequently. Out of place faces, sounds and sights. A sure sign of a nomad if there ever was one.

Music Of My Mind

i had a strange dream last night, kind of cool and bizarre at the same time. i was at some kind of concert, standing next to the person who was going to sing. apparently i knew him, though i don’t know who he is in real life. the music started but at the moment he was supposed to sing, he stayed quiet. the music stopped again. ‘you sing’, someone said to me. ‘just sing what you feel’. so i did, but the only thing that came out was a scream. and it was exactly how i feel in real life. the scream was very long and kept changing tones, and the audience seemed uncomfortable. the guy next to me whispered, ‘what are you doing?’, when all of a sudden the scream turned into a song. and the cool thing is that this is a real song! ‘autumn leaves’, by rachelle ferrell. she’s one of my favourite jazz singers, as i have mentioned before, and in her singing she screams a lot –but then on key^^. so the scream in the dream must have reminded me of the song, and when i started singing it, the band picked up the tune. then i woke up (in the dream) and i was pregnant. someone i do know in real life was sitting on a chair and i walked over as if i were a child, with my arms stretched out. he said, ‘come here’, and i sat down on his lap in a very childlike way, and he put his arms around me. then i woke up for real.