Ah, yes, again, I haven't posted in around 2 months, but consistency is for athletes and entrepreneurs. My pasty potbelly (it has the look and feel of a hardboiled egg) and distrust of anything that involves a strategy or business plan should be a testament to my inability to see anything through. Nevertheless, sorry guys.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing tonight is because I can't sleep. It's been a little over 3 months that I've been in New York, and I can feel the old anxiousness creeping up on me, prickly and gauzy as tuille. I'm in my new place, and though it's only a few blocks from my old one, I feel like I'm in the pit of Williamsburg; not in the pseudo-religious or physiological sense (although there's plenty of moral perfidy and body odor going on), but in the literal one: my place seems like it's at the basin of some valley, into which the uprooted of Brooklyn come tumbling. There's conversation...correction: shouted conversation...going on all the time, between every variation of talker. My bedroom faces one of the busiest streets in my area, and whenever I choose to listen out my window, the shit I hear is unbelievable.
For instance, there's this drunk, Mexican crooner who's turned Lorimer street into his personal lounge-singing showcase. It started last week when, as I was reading a manuscript for work, I heard this weird indiscernable gurgling that sounded vaguely like "that's amore." It definitely had a tune, but I couldn't be sure if it was really a song because the singer sounded so acutely pained! Every note started like a cliff jumper, on solid ground for two seconds, before it dove into some crazy unnatural register. His voice splintered into weird wheezy chords and half-formed words, their endings lopped off like gangrenous limbs. What's that you say, you sloshed serenader, you? "weeer raaaaaaaaaaaaaag mooooo laaaaaaaaang!" Be still my heart.
Anyway, he was out there earlier tonight, setting off car alarms and wailing about some languageless heartache, until my timid Indian neighbor hung out her window and screamed "Shut the fuck up!" He's been piping up every 20 minutes or so since, but you can tell his heart isn't in it.
It got me to thinking how many times my singing has annoyed people, which I'm guessing is a lot. Recently, my very French boss looked at me with watery eyes and said, "Rachel, do you ever stop singing?" I do now. I can recall maybe the first time I bullied someone into listening to me sing for an extended period, and it was my (now deceased) Grandpa Woody.
Now, it's really strange that I unearthed this memory tonight, because I honestly believe I haven't thought of it since it happened. What's more is that I have very few clear memories of my grandfather, mostly because he lived in California during my childhood, and as I got older, he began to develop Alzheimers. By the time I was 13, our conversations were sparse and sad, and whenever I saw him, he seemed rooted in a bewildered silence.
The point is that the few childhood memories I can still invoke are incredibly vivid, and he a vibrant figure in them. They're strange and isolated, but they're the same ones my sister has too, and I think they're pretty illustrative. I remember visiting him in California, and how he let us pour half-and-half over our cereal instead of milk (the fatty dairy fiends that we are)--the taste was cool and sweet, coating my teeth in rich froth. It was an indulgence I never brought back with me to Pennsylvania. I remember the game he played with Emmy and me, how he pretended to be asleep on our couch, and each time we tried to poke or shake him, he heaved a tremendous snore that rattled and sputtered out of his throat and sent us into fits of laughter.
There are many other memories like this, in which my grandfather is playful and indulgent, but the one I thought of tonight speaks to the man's patience. For some reason, I can't quite remember why, I was on the phone with Woody, I guess maybe waiting for my Dad to get home so they could discuss something. Anyway, I was probably around 7 or 8, and had just gotten Disney's Pocahontas on VHS. The trials of Colonial America thrilled me...also I liked the raccoon, and the delicious-looking biscuits that he steals from John Smith. Having watched it compulsively for several weeks, I had memorized all the words to The Colors of the Wind and decided it was about goddamn time someone heard my shrill eight-year-old's rendition. Now, this song is probably only about three-minutes long, but I managed to stretch those three verses like hot sugar, until they became thin as threads. I paced around my house, singing to my poor grandfather over the phone, for probably around 15 minutes, and not only did he never interrupt me, but he actually applauded me when it was over. In all probability, he probably put down the phone to make a sandwich or something while I sang "The rainstorm and the river are my brothers" five different times, each with a different rhythm and tune, but the point is that he never let on. Given my enormous capacity to absorb, obsess over, and torture myself with any insult or criticism I receive, I can't understate how important it was that my grandfather encouraged me then.
Around the same time, my parents (stupidly) bought me a pottery wheel, and after about two days trying to use it, I gave up. I couldn't stand how I could be molding a perfect little vase, but if I put just a little pressure on one side of the wet clay as it spun, the whole thing would mutate into some bulbous, sticky mess of mud. It makes sense to me that my own personality is equally delicate. We get poked and pressured during those formative years, and to this day, I can still find places where my own clay is cracked and crusted, others where it rises in a wet bulge. These malformations are the result of such tiny influences, the origins of which, many times, cannot be traced. Woody's silly, kind remark, small though it was, is a definite origin, a light pressure that ultimately formed one of the lovelier things in my life. I am so happy to be involved in music and, although it irritates everyone, to be able to sing with obnoxious frequency. Most importantly, I am so grateful to Woody for creating that memory, and for adding some sacred design to this lump of mud.
Sorry for the sentimentality, hopefully now I can get some sleep.
