chopin et shakespeare

I wasn't going to post this story- something in it was too personal, too raw, didn't quite fit, and I wasn't sure it would mean anything to anyone except me in the writing of it and the handful of people reading who still remember him - but something in the night, after taking a long bath in my hotel, unable to sleep, or something in the way my friend Adrian, dares me to post things even when they feel uncomfortable, or something in a lyric from a song my friend Kunal gave me that plays in my head "its hard to take risks" makes me wonder and dare: is it the raw painful things that move us, that speak to us, that help us create - is it possible that these parts aren't always ugly, but can be strangely moving?

i am reminded of a poem, my friend Sophie wrote at Smith, about this kind of thing, and just because it doesn't fit neatly into a box or a category (like so many things), doesn't mean I shouldn't write it...so here goes.

events happen, bending the trajectories of our lives in ways that, at the time, we rarely understand and even with time may not fully comprehend.

-----

i am in a church a million miles away, and what feels like another lifetime since the day we met. i'm in paris and all day i have seen lovers on the street, holding hands, craning their necks to kiss, sitting staring into one another's eyes over coffee, and now in this church, listening to chopin, i think of you.

seeing all these young lovers, makes me long for the day when you find me again, i know that i will know the moment it happens, it will be in some crowded restaurant over lunch or dinner, and i will look up and you will be there looking at me, you will hold my gaze in your soft brown eyes and smile, like that first day. you'll walk over and introduce yourself, only this time the name will not be Jeffrey, it will be someone else.

the music fills me, ears, heart, soul
i remember how you loved chopin, i remember everything about you

i would have given myself to you
body and soul
if i had, we'd be married living in a giant farmhouse that you and your father built, we'd have children, and gardens, and fields full of hay and cows. i'd have spent years being barefoot and pregnant, in the summertime shucking corn and peas and eating watermelon, and in the winter we would curl up by the fire after skiing in the woods and shoveling snow.

i never would have made it to Seattle, i would have found myself by a different path, never travelled to the places i did, kayaked with orcas under the full moon, gone swimming with dolphins in LA, walked in the paths of bears and caribou in alaska, heard the sound of night fishermen singing in laotian through the fog and moonlight, and i almost certainly wouldn't be sitting here in a church older than our country, listening to chopin.

like all things of its kind we dread them when they happen, and it is for a long time afterwards that we curse them, curse god, and feel numb wondering how this could come to pass - we mourn, shout to the heavens and cry.

everything changed that day

i didn't see it at the time
i didn't see how it would be
but my life changed inexplicably that day

the day you died

------

i wander, my eyes wet
the music and memories brought tears to my eyes
i am outside in the twilight of paris
collecting myself

rounding a corner i am suddenly in a courtyard full of carts of books
i look up - it is shakespeare and company - anglo bookstore in paris

how lucky i am to trip across it like this
here
now

i look down to the cart and the first book my eyes light upon
small and purple
the title comes into focus 'inevitable'
could it be?
is it really?
inevitable?

i can't quite believe it, and like exiting the metro to see the notre dame that first day
i look around, expecting any minute to wake up
i must be dreaming

i pick it up - it is the story of a woman in 1900
who against convention moves to a new life in Rome (ok, not Paris)
and "she discovers that Italy itself cannot bring her the consolation she seeks"
the book is tucked securely under my arm as i enter the store
it must be read

i wander through the stacks - finding nook and cranny filled with all manner of treasure
the back room, a desk with a tack board containing postcards from other bookstores
many favorites: Powells Portland, Moe's and City Lights by the bay
i feel a kindred spirit
connection
or perhaps just a shared love of books
and i linger

later
almost ready to leave i find myself in the fiction section
looking up i see it
bright red binding
with only the letter G marking it

a book called G?

i (of course) must look at it
i find stool, get it down
and in flipping it open i see the cover page in german
for some reason this doesn't stop me
I flip the pages to see if the book is really written in german,
but i never get to the text

instead the book slips from my hands
landing on the stacks below
the book lies open to its inscription page

this in english
by bob dylan

"forget the dead you've left
they will not follow you"