We Can Make Music

Today I left David Tay's house feeling like a million dollars. Harry kissed me in the hallway and looked into my eyes and told me he loved me, and the elevator door opened and we jumped. I felt so good, though, that I decided that instead of being embarrassed I would be myself, confident and wonderful. One of the elevator-people (as they shall now be known) had the oddest-looking dog I'd ever seen, and I laughed out loud when I looked at it. "May I?" I asked, and the poor shy elevator-man just nodded mutely as I stooped to pet the tufted thing. After being interrupted with her boyfriend, this strange, denim-clad teen was laughing, smiling at them, petting their dogs and waving to the doorman as she departed! And goodness--as she paused at the door to get her bearings, she whipped out--I still don't believe it--a harmonica! And she's good, too!

Faux-leather hobo cap under one arm and brown high-tops rolling heel-toe across the pavement like pink tongues on a lollipop, I made my way down the street, spitting a fast-paced melody from the metal bar without pausing for breath. People grinned, people covered their ears, people looked away and people met my eyes; when I found a chandelier at the street corner, I picked it up by the chain and laughed, wishing I was in college or at least had my own room. I recollected my strange and lovely day with Harry and dinner with David's friends-of-the-family and felt happy, because I... I don't know why, actually. Harry's going away for a bit, and I'd just made a conversational 'Oops' that I still felt awkward about, so I really shouldn't have felt so amazing. I did, though, and it was nice.

Around Union Square I stopped playing and listened to the silence of the night, which was beautiful. A group of men walked by discussing the movie Snow Mountain (I think that's what it's called), and my summer experience of lying in a dogpile of about ten random people who barely knew eachother on top of a tarp in front of a three-by-four-inch television screen at one in the morning came back to me. I remember Aja (an extremely bright lesbian girl who is semi-openly homosexual in what must be one of the most difficult places in the world to be openly homosexual in), when pressed, asking me, as we walked back to our sections without a flashlight at three AM, what parents would think if they knew that she, who slept next to their little girls and taught them to build fires and sing and saw them in their bikinis, was a lesbian, and not ashamed of it. I remember not knowing what to say. I remember Peanut giving me the last piece of pizza and Eric lending us his truck, and I remember sneaking into the boathouse to find the keys to the dock and sitting in a paddleboat for hours, staring at the stars amongst friends.

Of course, after summoning these memories, I had to open the Sedaris book again, despite my resolution to cherish it and read it slowly. I've just finished the "I Like Boys" chapter of Naked (which explains why I'm blogging at one (Edit: two) in the morning again), and I still can't get over the candid manner with which he describes his and everyone else's views on homosexuality, acting, racial integration and the likes. The contrast with my other current books, Siddhartha and At Play In the Fields of the Lord, is ridiculous. And I'm relishing every minute of it.

I know you're all going to laugh when you read this, and think "oh, V.V., you're such a hippie," and maybe love me and maybe hate me, and maybe disregard me, because that's what happens when you stick labels on people, and maybe think that I'm just having a severe mood swing and don't usually think like this, or maybe think I'm faking all of it--please don't. Please try to feel where I'm coming from... it's one of the truest parts of me, and it's resurfacing, and it's wonderful. Anyway, here goes:

Let's all love each other, please? Please, everyone, there's nothing I care about more. Let's get rid of all the vile, nasty things inside of us; let's be a bunch of people who don't even have to know each other all that well, but who love each other and know that we are loved, without fear or jealousy or anger or frustration, and let's help each other and hold each other tight and kiss each other's faces and not feel awkward about it. Let's not talk shit about people, let's not cut them open over tea and build up resentment when there's nobody there to defend them for reasons we aren't even sure of; let's forgive each other for our annoying habits, let's stop ourselves from getting irritated about tiny and meaningless things, let's be beautiful and clean like water and solid like earth and tell each other what we mean. Let's hold onto the truth and listen to the little voices that tell us whens something's off-kilter in the way we're treating people; let's not label each other or stuff people into stereotypes until their poor bound souls start growing backwards and bleeding. It's spring and we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and we're smart and funny and cool and intellectual and we all deserve the best that we can give each other, so let's do it, yeah? Let's get rid of our winter demons and turn into the wonderful free summer people that we are. Let's be beautiful together. I know we can't all be all of those things all the time, and I've seen pain and suffering and grief and (God knows!) anger and isolation, but let's try... we can, I know it, we can, even if we slip up and lose it, even if it's gone for years... we can do it. We can make music.

Damn. Now I feel embarrassed. Ah, well. "It's too late now for you to be sorry..."