The hourglass

The moleskin was new in its plastic

Little black notebook

Ed had to take it out and bend it to be able to write in it

He liked to write random names that sound nice to the ears in the “if lost please return to” section

This moleskin will be Lou Reed

Handy in a front vest pocket, accessible

She cut a good figure. Her arm asleep under his head, numb to thought about blood in itself. The window let the cool air of dawn in as he watched her stomach rise and fall. Headlights played tango on the wall with orange dresses and coca cabana shadowed trees moving in the music outside. He doesn’t sleep much sometimes. She is somewhere else fighting, or dancing or loving or all of these things in a few minutes of the minds montage. Maybe she is flying.

Burnt cedar, Sazerac lips. Sometimes Ed would leave work and on the walk to the Subway he would cry just enough to tell himself to stop. What was the meaning in it anyway? Not like searching was ever for finding. In a block it would have melted away. Like exhaust into snow, grey and a little reminiscent. It was like opening an account you don’t need to pour your heart out for a shot at not enough freedom when freedom was held above you in notes you could never write enough of. There wouldn’t be enough and that is why there’s love and the other emotions and words for our heart. Sometimes he thought about nothing and that idea of Zen. When your mind is empty. Ed wondered if that was a mans aim. To be free of everything if just for a few minutes. No energy, no yes answers, no dimensional realms, no lifetimes, not a single thought that had been learned. He thought about the mind and its self-contained life. The life we don’t share. Out with the metro card as a man stumbles into the turn style, a trumpet wales, animals and trains screech blindly into themselves. Things bang and whistle, lights are humid without humidity and the white and black tile stay divided for posterity. At least that’s how we are taught, generation after generation.

Burnt cedar, Sazerac lips. Humid lights out onto the fire escape. There is a hum of white snow. Men and women ice skate on a rink in a movie. The tree is massive. The headlights are everywhere. The flight is in a week.

Turning a corner in a tomb Ed sees a 40 foot buddha cut directly into the wall from 1,000 years ago. He doesn’t realize what he’s seeing for at least 2 years. There are relics everywhere. The air feels like reverence. The pit in his stomach pushes water out of his eyes. He thinks this love is better than the hall of mirrors back home. Anyone in this village would take his place in a second. He ponders why everyone wants something else. Are we only after a changing rhythm? He wonders if getting old makes you lose your taste for wandering. He wonders about routines, comfort, homelessness, the rich and those with no shoes. Those with no screens on their windows with houses made of wood cut by hand. He thinks about what they think about. What does simple mean?

They are riding down dirt paths, they are riding around Islands of Gods. They are riding with the wind and blue sea. They are riding over mountains to caves. They are riding over time with two wheels. They ride over rice paddies, past white painted faces with red teeth waving and yelling Mingalaba. They are riding in the lush green tropics with durian and mango trees. Past beaches with butterflies the size of a women’s rib cage. The smell in the air, the sun and electricity makes his mind say thank you. Thank you for the glory of this day. Looking back, it feels like a mirror to divinity. Utterly alive and in its depth of polarity from life to life it could not be sharper. West Coast vs East Coast. Old vs New. The divide feels no less than 200 years.

It is lottery week in Thailand and the vendors claim they have the winners. Lucky man, lucky man. He is with her. They stop to buy a ticket. She is holding his hand. She says goodbye as she goes to work.

Lou Reed entry pg. 19:

An hourglass with wings. How many heads to kiss. All of those moments like sand slipping into itself. Embedded in her arms and eyes. Sometimes you just know something or feel like it’s the last or first. There’s even a moment of fear but then you see the winged hourglass as love not death and she takes your breath away. Why did he always leave? It was all of the negatives of life that scared him but the one redeeming effect was the idea of living in a moment. Not wanting to ruin what so many times we attach ourselves to until we watch it mutate into what we need not what we want. In those few arms that grip the life out of you is it better to feel them as that embrace than to let them languish? Sometimes I can do everything myself and still love you so deeply it hurts me. Wasn’t it better than fighting about who didn’t wash the dishes. Wasn’t it better to love in those moments than fight for a lifetime?

If watching all the lights upon landing was a heartbeat returning to a chest the departing flight is like getting your sternum cracked. Wheezy for days. Not for a week so don’t think of it until then. Push it out. Soup broth, noodles, red pork, Chinese kale, maybe a dumpling…kway teow moo dang by Wat Lok Molee for breakfast. There was talk of doing the Mae Hong Son Loop but they will ride around the South East coast instead.

Last nights and days are whirling. He has gotten a wish come true to show a wonderful friend around the country he loves. There are talks of energy in the form of everything, politics, life and the unknown. There is a wok fried restaurant. The man is a master of his craft. A simple rice soup with fish sauce and chilis is like a home he has claimed. It feels like the eyes of the people know more than him. The bathroom is a shack with a cement floor with a hole. There’s a lightbulb and the door is always open. Big bugs fly around. It’s the dark that fills your mind. Durian were in season now its rambutan and lychee.

In the morning before the flight back Ed walks to a foot massage parlor he has gone to a few times. There is a young women there that loves with her hands. Its as if she is pouring love into every inch of his feet. He wonders if she is conscious of what she is giving. He thinks how much her rent is a month and how many feet she has rubbed to pay for her place. Maybe she still lives at home. What is she doing with all this love pouring from her hands.

During the massage he thinks of his Thai lottery ticket. He thinks about winning the big prize and how he could stay here. Move here. Love here. Be here. He hands the girl the ticket and leaves the room to put on his shoes. His flight will leave before the drawing. He wishes her the good luck and bows to salute her. He stops to buy a mango sticky rice. From his left he sees the girl from the massage room. She says that the ticket won 600,000bht yesterday. Ed does the math. $20,000 USD. Ed smiles and feels the warmth of the whole trip radiating in his chest. He feels the nights on new beaches. He sees the smiles of those faces running after him. He places his two hands together, bows to her again, says Sawasdee Kop and turns down the alley. The foot rub was enough. The country was enough. The people were enough. The love he felt was enough. He would not take back what he had given. He would honor the love he felt, not with money but with the idea of hope.

Somewhere on the flight home he has made up his mind to not work as much. To expand his circle. To make time for other things in life. He will lose half his salary. He may even lose his job for requesting a lightened workload. He thinks about Michigan and being a young man. Before he had everyone else’s idea of him

Lou Reed entry pg. 28

There is an old white light dancing on a dark pond, shimmering

The frogs are croaking and its humid

It smells like energy, like a field of green in spring

But its night and that smell is there at the pond

There are creatures on the surface floating like stars, swimming

Creating little pools as they push themselves and I am watching them

They are watching me

We are together in this moment of Spring on this night at this pond of dark with the moon

The water bugs are telling me a story I will only know in 30 years

It’s about time and how it moves

And if you listen and believe they will talk to you

When your older and can pay attention

You will hear all of what they said just like they hear you

Out at the pond as you tell them a story

About how you grow up and leave them behind

The wheels touch. It is another time and another life back across the pond. He thinks of the girl at the massage shop. The wings on the hourglass are flying the sand around the world. It slips into itself then turns itself over.