At times, I tend to wonder after direction; attempt to shade, if not shape, its glow of multifaceted uncertainty. I think of direction then, in physical form, in logistics, and how it is easier and more forgiving to the inevitable fumbling of the Human Condition.
Around here, the streets seem to continue on endlessly and unchanged from the previous mile without much consideration to, or sense of, landscape planning or user friendliness. Curves of two-lane, single-yellow blacktop slice through the mountains and cradle kidney-shaped, paved pull-offs for healthy tourists and their Subaru hatchbacks: in the parking lot with sore necks, looking as unsure as you feel, surrounded by holes, each a different shape, cradling slippery depths of shallow water.
I spend enough time, wondering, without knowing. I spend enough – and do not save, myself.
I feel the swell in temperatures pushing against the colorlessness, hurrying the Spring, in the same way I resist (to the best of my ability) the down drags of Winter’s uncertainty, a clamoring yet conscientiously ignored echo. You must wade through the murk.
You were scaling the metal scaffolding with a chainsaw in your hand, trying to get at a tree growing in towards the house. The pools of your eyes matched the sky so perfectly, it was as if I was seeing straight through your skull to the blue beyond.
I stared into the comparison for several minutes, allowing my own eyes, green, to sting against the white light of the now ubiquitous ice-snow. You had no eyes, only sky.
A strong limb fell then – but it did not break your jaw. I watched, still, as you rubbed the side of your face with the chainsaw crying. I thought how the testosterone in those brief moments could be harvested it was so thick, too heavy for the seven-degree wind. I stared at your hands adjusting the blade around the machine and thought about what we did for hours that early morning when the sun was only beginning to come. I saw your shoulders move underneath all the layers of sweaters and turtlenecks and t-shirts – in that order – as you stretched your arms and shook your head. I could see from behind that you were smiling and I knew your face then exactly without your turning around.
My neck was hot, and I kept my eyes on your back as I thought of how you won again, against the world.
“Every state in New England has its own shrewd, side identity: Vermont is the favorite, Massachusetts is the jock (Nantucket and the Cape escape unscathed), Rhode Island is the bastard (Newport is also safe – but nowhere else), Maine is the unicorn, New Hampshire is the black sheep, and Connecticut is the preppy Bermuda Triangle.” – Quite a few people
Both above photos were taken by the insightful, patient and quite multitalented @spencrdeane.
nautilus | ˈnôd(ə)ləs |
noun (plural nautiluses or nautili | ˈnôtl-ī |
1 a cephalopod mollusk with a light external spiral shell and numerous short tentacles around the mouth. Nautiluses swim with the buoyant gas-filled shell upright and descend to greater depths during the day. Genus Nautilus, the only surviving genus of the subclass Nautiloidea: several species, in particular the common chambered nautilus(Nautilus pompilius) of the Indo-Pacific, with a shell that is white with brownish bands on the outside and lined with mother-of-pearl on the inside.
2 (also paper nautilus) another term for argonaut. ORIGIN modern Latin, from Latin, from Greek nautilos, literally ‘sailor’.
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Glad to know my deadbeat alma mater (cough, Danbury), and my endearingly mock-urban, hometown’s next-door neighbor, “the City of Village Charm” – Manchester – were properly called out in the first below video. Not sure if G’bury would even ever get a reference in any worthwhile track (positively anyway) – at all – trust me. But hey, at least the capital region has a history of Mark Twain, and the Charter Oak, and insurance, and untouchable Victorians in the South End and all of that brownstone. (And most of us, yes, hate the Patriots – not to mention their homebase. New York is a slightly closer neighbor, depending, – and far better, to say the least.)
If nothing else, Connecticut, as most of New England, remains immune to most infestations, due to the fact that as soon as any organisms begin to bloom, the temperature drops and everything, conveniently, dies. And for some reason, at least the capital continues, to this moment in my awareness, to host heavy, and intensely worthwhile dance parties downtown. How can it be harder to find a solid show in the South, a region synonymous with “summer house music”, swelter, glitter, neon, lack of clothing, obliterated personal boundaries, duplicitous etiquette, and – to a certain extent – moderate-to-ridiculous waves of -night life debauchery and a subtle slant towards ‘fuck the world if it won’t fuck me back in just the way I want’, if you will (and why blame it, honestly)? Peculiar, that in Southern New England; Northern Connecticut, the concept of a ‘dance party’ – though not ‘mainstream’ by most means – is much more common.
Connecticut is not the most balmy state – New England as a whole is a cold cluster of land huddling together without friendship, reaching out for heat, though not necessarily for warmth. Relied on for basic survival are bonfires, forever-still freezing beaches, somebody else’s seasoned woodpile, swimming in mid-September after the Long Island sound heats through about a foot and a half down, constant movements side-to-side in place while waiting – for anything at all: traffic lights, snow plows, professional cancellations, gas pumps, bad news, better luck the next time, human understanding, the mail, the weekend, an orgasm, change, a receipt, distracted drivers, phone service. One becomes used to sleeping in socks and underwear only, rejected covers and heavy layers clutched for immediately out of the bedroom. Yet, iced coffees are always – simply a more efficient, faster method of ingesting caffeine than its boiling brotherhood.
Inefficient heating systems are like bad relationships – they attempt to convince the users of being useful at a time of temperature-induced weakness. Ever shiver out of passion, anxiety, desire, anger, nervousness, sexual frustration, exhaustion, general mental disconnect and/or social irritation? Welcome, then, to a new physical quake attributed to the most refreshing reason of, simply, becoming cold enough and ones inability to immediately and adequately reclaim a more comfortable internal temperature.
In a tiny state synonymous with somewhat abrasive delivery, unoffensive baby-blue gradient license plates, centrist political opinions, a strange yet straight beauty of remaining direct (in speech, in person, in affection, in action, in bed, in apologies, in defiance of all else – and otherwise – always) snow, rust, doors gone un-held, collard shirts, old cars and ancient trucks, brunch, melodramatic weather reports, frozen passenger-lock mechanisms opened at 4am with pans of boiling water after drip coffee, oversharing, undetectable ‘accents’ (until displacement to another state ruins one’s naturally-cultivated ‘lock jaw’), ignorance and/or deliberate rejection of sentimentality, acute loneliness, discombobulated public transportation, snarky vulgarity in good fashion, isolation, canvas pants, nautical themes, hunting jackets worn only to shovel snow within a storm, delightfully and unabashedly self-deprecating humor, casual yachts, salt-washed polos, and saltier automobiles with paint peeling and dog legs and wheel wells rotting into one another’s oblivion, and scrappily thrown together house parties – go figure, go figure. Connecticut stands still as an unexpected anomaly of the oddest self-importance, especially for a place with reputation so bland, so medium, so easy to ignore in the midst of its directly Southern and much further Northern neighbors.
The state, however, will remain a sound instructor of survival for me, starting me young and without conscious choice years ago; the territory on which I encountered my two best ‘boyfriends’ (albeit one being born in Atlanta – that state can claim yet another outstanding musician) and, though I am only as sure as one individual alone can be, the square state most likely stands the same, in iced armor, for many others.
Credit is due, like I have said, yet going back and going broke is not an option. Forward, always; a path is not always straight.
When Connecticut relocates to Florida (two instances):
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[Below reminds me of my times in Daytona – I still love you, DB.]
good advice 