las desvaidas agujas del reloj
as i sit doing yet more teaching, more distant
flashbacks assault me. Long forgotten faces, a park in Caracas, some girl we
were speaking to on the steps of a church in Bello Monte in the summer of 69.
But also less defined things, shreds of forgotten memories, drift on to me, no
longer recognisable although still capable of rousing
longing.
How is this possible? To have
forgotten an episode of your life, whatever happened in it, whoever was part of
it and yet retain enough of it that it could bring about that bittersweet
feeling
Turn a street corner and think
of another street corner many thousands of miles, many years away. Nothing
extraordinary about either street corner, just an impromptu unwarranted
association...
Walking back from
Cochecito, guitar on my shoulder, the sun obliquely moving down towards the
horizon, passing through the bridges of the Estadio Universitario, stopping at
the Llamozas conservatoire for a chat with friends. But no, i'm not there, i'm
only in the backstreets of Kentish Town. And yet, if I close my eyes I am back
there. I can see the orange mountain in the distance. I can hear the yelling in
Spanish of children yelling. Maybe I'll stop at the Lebanese patisserie for some
of those the most aggressively sweet sweets in the world and some baba
ganug.
Arrive home, open the door, push
it in with some effort, sigh. Push it closed, turn the lock and look outside for
a second. Climb the five flights of steps to my room. Dump stuff. Look out the
window.. the world is still there. London is still outside, cold and wet and
grey, the red buses are still crawling their way up the road, shiny in their
coat of raindrops. The sad forlorn figures of people trapped in the immense
anonymity of the city still lurk in the bus stops, with their cheap coats and
bags and their sad looks. A young woman talks aloud on her own, looks nervously
from side to side as she makes a pause in her speech to some invisible ghost;
the other people in the bus stop withdraw a step or two, nervously looking the
other way. I close the curtain, sigh and
wonder.
sometimes the world feels like
a immense complicated trap.
Posted: Wed - November 19, 2003 at 11:05 PM