Twenty-four ~ Detached

Dear R-----,
 
       If you haven't heard the new R.E.M. album yet, go buy a copy. Now. This time, even a few of the critics like it - which says a lot, as they've pretty soundly trashed the last few. The melodies thread among and between both solid sky and nebulous clouds, threads of gold and liquid prisms... not always melodies that will catch in your head for the day, though wisps of lines as summer breezes will, but emotion never runs in predictable lines, why should music? No one complains about curves in painting. And Michael's voice... I can't even begin. The cadences and tones in every phrase... it's so beautiful. Beauty isn't a strong enough concept to hold this. All that makes the soul lift and cry out in joy... existence bound up in sound... The pain and longing of true beauty, not the painted perfection of a face or the false lines of culture but the place the heart longs to remain, and can catch only snatches of in this world...

       I'd like to think I make a beautiful picture, walking along a worn-grass path amidst the brick building of the campus, the sunlight dappled by emerald leaves, tangling in my dark hair, my face turned up, eyes shining in love for all things, my heart shining past circles of sky-tinged blue, the song infecting even my stride...

       But I probably just look stoned.

       Don't worry, it's okay, I'm laughing at myself too. I can't help but think in terms of photographs and music videos, they're what make up my entire life, it's all an audio-visual patchwork, scraps of viewpoints and songs.

       It feels like summer's stretching into forever, the days are still so long and warm. Not that I'm complaining - it gives me time after class to explore more, camera over my shoulder. I haven't been back in the woods behind the house in awhile - P-----'s been sending a good deal of time working on his "secret" fort, and any time I near the path, he or a friend chases me out. (It's all in fun, I play along; I've been threatening to build a rival fort nearby, just to tease him.) I've been riding my bike around, learning the roads and area in general a little better. My excursions have a habit of taking longer than I'd planned, which is one reason the lengthy daylight is so appreciated. Once you're outside of town the stretch between roads grows quite a bit, which turns even the slightest angle into a good deal of extra distance, and since I'd rather not come back on exactly the same route I left on...

       It's a very good thing I picked up a county map last semester, not that I've gotten very lost, but I get a little nervous when I've been riding an hour back towards town and I've not seen anything familiar.

       It occurs to me that while I may feel an artist's distance from the world on campus, I probably just seem detached and unapproachable to everyone else. (The ever-present headphones don't help, I'm sure.) I really hope not, I hope my eyes tell them otherwise... I'm just shy, I'm scared of sounding silly or stumbling over words and having people think less of me, so I simply don't say anything at all... I'm confident in my views and thoughts, but I don't trust my voice, only my hand and paper. I look in the mirror and I like who I see - but I'm also very aware that she's not much like everyone else...

       I smiled at an old man cleaning the walls in the post office this morning, and he snarled at me, probably thinking I was laughing at him, when all I intended was a sympathetic camaraderie, a smile of appreciation - I cleaned on-campus all last year as work-study, I know how it feels being ignored by passers-by. And I don't think I'd ever look down on someone like that, I may have in the past but I've grown beyond that... and anyway, I've nothing which makes me any better than anyone... But how well do I ever know how to address people properly anyway, I might watch them but interaction is so rare.

       I'm lost in dreams of a past I never knew, I'm out of place in my own time...

       Music is my home, and music is not of time.