The balcony appeared cold. It contained the characteristics familiar to CS which presumed when sliding open the transparent door there would be a slight movement of chilly air into the room causing shivers and a recoil from stepping outside. But outside is where CS wanted to be. The door was opened and the weather was warm. What appeared to be evaporation of water molecules hazing the morning atmosphere were dust particles, unsettled by the southern winds. Oklahoma during this month was the fourth driest month with the least amount of precipitation aside from the three coldest months, November through January. This optical illusion of climate was only a slightly disturbing discomfort for CS, it marked the beginning of new thinking that would be required, as forgetting the old ways would be necessary for progress.
M,
The heat of the Oklahoma morning has made my chocolate chip cookies melt. I can really feel a change in the weather. It’s really dry out here at motel 6. The sky hasn’t changed much as far as I can tell, yet something is different. The trees are few but the air is clean and I like it.
Our room is located on the third floor and there is a balcony. Father was sitting out there tinkering while listening to an old country station on the radio. The music was my attraction to discover what he could be doing, though in some sense it should have been a message to me and perhaps I should have known what he was doing. He is always listening to Eddy Arnold and Johnny Cash records while tinkering.
When I stepped out he stopped what I was doing and looked up at me with his crafty knowing smile. He was in that serene place of mindful thoughts. Knowing when he is content with his thoughts makes me feel at peace. He put down what he was doing and stood up with a slight stretch and with his arm gestured to the great vast beyond of Oklahoma. We had a decent enough view with a far vanishing point that ended where sky meets land.
Father began expressing himself. “There is much to be discovered where sky meets land. Some people need a spyglass to see that far in the distance but you learn more along the way if you use your own legs and feet. I know you have been reading a lot about the universe, so I would like to share with you a bit of knowledge I have picked up over the years. Galileo was a physicist and astronomer who used his talent for mathematics to build a bigger spyglass called the telescope. Later that same year of 1609 he discovered the moon was not smooth but mountain and cavernous. When you look out here to the distance it might appear that you see everything there is to the vanishing point but I can guarantee that is only the perspective through a spyglass. It isn’t until you use your own legs and feet and get moving in the direction you want to go that you will see anything from a real perspective.”
He then reached down and took my hand. He turned it over to look at my palm. I thought in this moment of weird wisdoms he might try to read the lines and read my palmistry to decipher my future but he didn’t. He smoothed his fingers from my wrist to my finger tips then began pinching each tip between the second knuckle of his forefinger and thumb. “There are other cultures that believe different things. One believes there are universes located in the swirls and whorls of our own fingertips. So while some of us lie on our backs and examine the stars, others only have to look into our own hands to see galaxies. Hindus credit the tips to Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth.” After turning each tip around several times he, pulled on each phalange from the distal metacarpal to the tip again. Then cradling my hand in both of his, applied pressure to my palm with both thumbs and using them like windshield wipers, fanned opened the metacarpals. If you were a palm reader these would be your lines of Mars, head, heart, life, fate and health and what have you. The hindus ascribe this part of the hand to Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, music and the arts.” He began making small specific circles to my carpal bones, which relieved some of the tension I had been holding from writing so much. I felt a shiver go up my arm and felt relaxed. “This part of the hand for afore mentioned palmists would be your mound of venus, or your mound of love. This to the Hindus is Govinda, God. Each morning they are reverent of their hands in all that they support and they are gracious, this symbolizes their honest labor. Consider your hands CS. When you discover your honest labors go forth into distance and be sure to use your own legs and feet to make the journey as you gain your own perspective before your reach the point of
vanishing.” He smiled again his knowing smile and let go of my hand.
“Maybe you might include it in that journal of yours someday.”
When I went back into the hotel room I looked down at my chocolate chip cookies with melted chocolate chips. I imagined each was its own galaxy and the chocolate chips were expanding black holes. I then thought that if this plate was the universe and my galaxies were swallowed by chocolate chip black holes at least it would be a semi-sweet ending.
Today we’re going to drive by the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. It seems kinda morbid but it is historical and educational. I was going to suggest this but he said it first, so I don’t feel so bad about going, like maybe I was conjuring up some negativity.
Last night on the radio I heard the Aerosmith song, the power ballad that was remade into a country tune by Mark Chestnut. The radio man said it was written by Dianne Warren, the same American songwriter who wrote “Solitaire” for Laura Branigan. I asked dad if this was the same “Solitaire” that Sheryl Crow sang, which I thought was a remake of The Carpenters. He explained that it wasn’t and then he pulled out a mix tape from the case beneath his seat labeled “pair-of-dimes”, he had made many years ago when he was a journalist, which contained both songs. He explained that essentially they were the same story. Laura Branigan’s (or Dianne Warren’s) was from a first person perspective of heart break and that Sheryl Crow’s (or The Carpenter’s) versions were from a second person narrative. He said too that together they created the paradox of loneliness.
“You see LB begins the story with ‘I still remember how much I used to need you, tried so hard to please you but you didn’t need me…’ which depicts what could be a woman scorned, but because she could easily find something better to do that required less of her, it seems more likely that her attention just shifted to a different game. Her thoughts didn’t change, especially since she didn’t need to take the fella back to sustain her life and found more amusement in watching him suffer in the same way she only thought she had. It is ironic really only that it helped launch a solo career. I think anything else is summed up in the first line ‘I used to need you’ think about that.
The narrative “Solitaire” which was written by Sedaka and Cody and sung by earlier artists like Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis and even Presley the man, was more about a bunch of artists ganging up on one man. Suppose Cody’s lyrics were really an observation of one man, if not his self, the song becomes the anthem for the anti-social. I don’t suppose that makes a lot of sense but each of the artists are individuals, surrounded by many fans, who listen to a song about being lonely. But this is all irrelevant to the times of now. What have you got to listen to?”
I shrugged. I was curious to know more about the tapes my father had brought along with him and what they meant with all of their interesting names. I was still thinking about you and us being connected and I couldn’t help believing that if I was sad than you were sad too and perhaps I should give into my feeling of loneliness. I reached into his bag and selected something called “Subject 2 Change”. My father looked at me rather surprised and then smiled from the side of his mouth. I opened the case and pushed the cassette in. I listened. It was twang but not country. It was more hip than country. Then I was surprised my father would have this in his collection of music. The artist began to sing. “I’m the same I was when I was six years old…” I wasn’t sure of his voice but it seemed familiar, like someone had I had been listening to just recently. When the song reached the bridge I thought it was you.
Maybe “Solitaire” was an anthem for one lonely man who was stoned to death by his unwillingness to be social but this song was a perpetuation of what I had already been thinking and I knew I had made the correct choice of anthem. “The universe works on a math equation that never even ever really even ends in the end, infinity spirals out our creation…”
I was pacified for several songs but then I got kinda upset about leaving again because I feel like I’m going to be missing out on a lot of things. Like the sports seasons, well, watching you play. I hope you’re having fun with that and play really well in all of your games. Of course I will be active and join as many teams as I can when I get out there, you know softball with the Sunday alcoholics, track and field with the skinny nerds and soccer with the long quiets. There is bound to be real sand volleyball with as dry and treeless as it has been. I wanted to start running when I got there but I left my running shoes. My ideas seem choppy and sentences full of contractions. I hope my letters get better. I think these are the worst letters I’ve ever written. That’s okay though, I haven’t written anybody in a long time. I’m sure they’ll get better.
Your Infinite Spiral
CS
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