There are many things I love about LA. But some days, I fear for us. Some days, it seems like we are simply a haven for broken angels, where:
...love of art, fame, and money have become the same thing. I almost wonder if I can even separate them anymore.
...love of self has become paramount.
...love of networking has replaced love for people. All that matters is "What have you done for me?" "What could you do for me?" and, most importantly, "What have you done for me lately?" (as I simply cannot remember past the insecurities of my own last 24 hours).
...alone is the new together. Every individual must own a car and drive it everywhere. Alone. Going across the street? Drive. It is state law! You may own a cell phone and talk on it incessantly, but you may not have meaningful conversations. (That is also state law.)
...California is god. We will sacrifice every spare cent we make to live in a city that is almost exactly like every other city on the world, but with more traffic, and an unusually high concentration of businessartists. We will pay outlandish costs for taxes, milk, gas, rent, heat, water, and everyothergodforsakenthing you can buy, simply because our zip codes start with a "9."
...everything can be bought. Everything.
I think we best pray to God that, unlike fashions, mentalities do not spread from the left coast.
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Why does travel sound so good?
Behold Alison Krauss & Union Station, in "Gravity":
And the people who love me still ask me When are you coming back to town And I answer quite frankly When they stop building roads And all God needs is gravity to hold me downAhh, that sounds pretty nice... It's quite nearly time for me to visit some other lands, see some new things. Here's hoping I'm able to do it soon. //
I wrote this on December 10th, 2005, at 3:33pm in Vail, Colorado, right after finishing a book by Alice Sebold called "The Lovely Bones;" its aftershocks are potent, and it is a book I highly recommend.
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It shakes me heavily how someone can compose something so poignantly beautiful out of a story so horrifically tragic.
Life does not exist in separate blocks of happy and then sad, but these emotions are constantly juxtaposed, eternally vying for attention. My thoughts are forever torn between memories that stab like icicles and thoughts that make something inside me literally bubble with emotion, as if I may at any moment break into song or laughter or crying or some unknown, frightening combination.
Today, as life is starting (my sister is having a baby today -- right now, actually), so also life is disintegrating as I, we, all grow older, some pieces of us fading to black and some lighting up with color in previously unexplored places.
And time; time is not our enemy but our healer -- a disturbing, patient ghost that forever ties us together with infinite strands we call moments.
If we could only find a way to marry our atoms to the moment we're living, I think we would find our life's music in tune.
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