hands

What do an artist, a train and an ex-girlfriend have in common? Nothing, except they are bugging my mind. I guess you always need something to chew on when you can’t sleep at night. Or is it that this is what keeps me up at night in the first place? I wake up and I can’t remember my dreams. Only the phantoms. The silhouettes and the outlines of shadows and light. A kaleidoscope of colors. When the thoughts begin, they seem to have nothing to do with my night visions.

I met an artist named Ray Caesar. He was very kind. He spoke of wondrous things of dreams and fantasms of the dead world. He makes little rooms where the dead may live on with their favorite things and fabrics. Their hands speak of the things they have done and are still able to do. Things that are beyond their control sometimes. Mechanically they function on their own at times. He draws them like tentacles because some of the things we do alienate us from ourselves, make us wonder who did this and why. Hands are the symbols of our actions. This I can extend to our words. Speaking is an action and it does good and it does bad. When do we feel we have communicated well? When the other has understood? When we feel we are understood? Or when the other does not freak out and wants to claw at our eyes? But hands like words are our tools to reach out to the other. Touch and connect. The one way to feel not so alone. Tentacles that wish to reach further. Beyond our horizon. To do and to learn by taking in the feel of the other, the skin and textures. Learning what the other one feels like. To feel her reality to assure me that also I am real. Creating a new reality with every single touch. Like the hand of man reaching to touch the hands of heaven…

All my thoughts are unfinished. But then, what is a finished one? One that can be quoted throughout the ages I suppose. One that most can relate to which means successful communication and understanding. Mine are not ripened by the test of time. Stayed out in winter too long. Have not seen the sun, danced beneath the moonlight, and thrown some shadows of their reflection. Maybe I have nothing much to say and want to draw a pretty picture with words. For no other reason than this. One way to expel the images inside my head.

The artist left me stranded in Paris. Out on a cold drizzly night. In a wonderworld of glittery spectacles. Because we had come by train. We walked, we rode the metro. We ate chili. We drank wine. Told stories of hazardous bus rides. Laughed. Then someone looked at their watch. Too late, the last train will go in five minutes. In the haze of red wine and smoky walls it all seemed ridiculous and surreal. Then someone phoned the train schedule. Holy merde. The next train will go at seven something. Seven hours of time to be killed in the streets of Paris. I have no judgment of this night. It caused a big sense of havoc. Angry phone calls. A frantic walk through half of Paris. A boy saying, I will come get you. A girl’s disbelieving heart leaping, not able to hide, only saying, are you sure, with her soul laughing. Selfishly. Hailing of taxicabs in the middle of the road. American tourists in the square before some church whose name I have forgotten. A grateful French man kissing my cheek twice, thanking me for that clop. In a side street a little yellow car arrived. She carried us home in silent brooding weather that envelops you like a warm scratchy blanket. Another step further it took me toward him. Someone can act out of care not out of malice. I can be grateful and not ashamed or angry. There are problems and they have solutions. One can give up or answer the heart and do what it tells you to do. It often is a long journey knowing what you must do. But when you know, it’s as clear as day. I learned this again that night in Paris where everything seemed so disjointed all of a sudden. When the train had derailed and would go no further. You came by car. Another train will come another day.

I think I will have to tell you about the ex-girlfriend another day… it’s a long story.