Lives of Other

It's wash-out acid on cloud eight-not-ready-for-nine and the drip drop rain hard banks onto the windows streaked gray looking beyond the looking glass to outside where the pink blossoms waits for the yellow sun slants to come out.  To play.

Seattle afternoon spent sipping joe, dark like the monsoon at the end of the world, like the throaty growl of disappearing tigers. The coffee warms/mesmerizes/soothes – catching gumdrop thoughts cascading from rainbowed imaginations rocked wild, wrapping round synapses and neurons, spinning into vignettes, movies, acts, scenes (exit left) – stories of what-ifs and hows-thats – before they all (and my eyes) subside into the treasure chest of forgetfulness...

It's a weird thing, this city that is not my city, not a proper city with grid lines and skyscrapered canyons.  Firs and pines and greens – wet green damp earth – where's the graffiti splashed on walls, garbage on the streets, the pungent smells of 8 million teeming souls, writhing cavorting fingering embellishing wishing living together?  Where's the flash-by-night, the long exposure of time stretched out, making 28 hours out of one day, of groaning midnights and yawning daylights – the struggling artists bleary eyed with exacting financiers – the delivery boys on bicycles, the trash guys hanging from the trucks, the sandwich makers behind the deli counter? 

City that is not my city – rolling hills rimmed by vineyards flanked by rivers flowing into lakes hugged by aged white peaks.  Flat blocks for office buildings.  The city is like an amoeba, stretching and receding, flowing out towards the water's edge, construction cranes bobbing down up down up, sprawled suburbias of Safeways and Wamus and somewhat exotic restaurants like Ginger Thai House or Hello Sushi – crocuses and tulips in front of homes, mailboxes around cul-de-sacs – life behind windows, in front of flickering screens and through screen doors. Huh.

Huh. What if there is life outside of New York? Weird. But possibilities!