Me & Julio Down By the School Yard

These last few days have been crazy and involve:

-MoMA (I fell in love with Cezanne)
-Forever 21
-lots of coffee
-a night with Travis and Renata watching Cry-Baby again while Harry worked
-shooting my first roll of film only to discover that I hadn't loaded it right
-shooting my real first roll of film
-lots of web-surfing
-anonymous comments
-lots of texts
-a new ringtone (Paint It Black)
-a flea market (jacket, shirt, necklace, $10, $5, $5)
-a day with Renata and Julia
-being embarrassed by Harry and Travis
-lots of writing: the secret sex life of ___? for my former class, now a club
-more Existentialism
-dead plants
-embarrassing Harry and Travis by loud behavior, driven by sleep deprivation
-lots of fights with my dad, which leave our guests with the impression that I'm just a bitchy teenager who hates her parents for no reason
-a "chill" at the house of someone I'd never met
-sleeping on the sofa for three consecutive nights and thus getting very little sleep
-lots of tapiocas that Renata shot at me through her bubble tea straw
-Had I A Hundred Mouths, which is possibly the best short story I've ever read
-an English guy at Terra Blues who tried to card me--what the fuck?
-an abrupt decision to leave Terra, inspired by the realization that I still had two tapioca balls in my hair
-the recurring fear that I'm just a bitch teenager who hates her parents for no reason
-an abrupt decision to listen to free live music in Washington Square, inspired by the fact that they were playing Me & Julio Down By the School Yard and moved on to late Beatles work
-calls from Elena Solli, who's back, and another Elena, who wants me to babysit again tomorrow morning
-about ten minutes of free time to blog in

New York is amazing. Just walking through the streets you see tons of people you'd like to know and talk to. Reading William Goyen I was struck once again with the very life a person is capable of having, the depth and emotion and strength and soul. I once wrote on the back of my notebook, "where does Neruda's fire come from?" Now I ask only "where does anyone's fire come from?" Because I see so much fire in this city. I see life and pain and hate and racism and sexism and fear and strength and love, so much love. Love keeps us strong and keeps us sane. Too often now I feel loveless and lifeless.

I feel like in the last day I've rediscovered it, whatever it is, this sense of life and passion and intensity and such deep-running beauty that I cried as I walked home, camera bouncing against my chest, hair riddled with tapiocas and mangy like a dog's. Isn't it beautiful when thirty people can stand in a circle and sing together completely spontaneously? When plastic bottles become instruments, when music comes to life, when everyone's smiling and nobody cares who you are?

I cannot describe the feeling I had as I walked home; I only know that it has nothing to do with hormones or my body, and that I would not have been surprised to find Neruda's fire burning in my empty apartment when I got home. I think I would have smiled, and looked for things to burn.