novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- on walking, on moving, on movement and memory he is older than me by a year and nine months, almost exactly. he has finesse and knows how to network. i am moony and cuddly and forget to look up when i walk deep in thought. he knows and follows customs, things i'd never think to remember, like birthday cards and phone calls and dinner parties. how to appease finicky, ever-watchful relatives. sometimes when i walk i just don't want to stop. i usually have my headphones on and i'm walking a path i always take and i just want to pass my apartment and keep going. compared to him, i have tunnel vision. i am the perpetual egg to his perpetually flying bird. he moved here a year after i did. i inwardly savored this in keeping with our rivalrous way, so of course it took me a few years to realize that he dug his heels in far better than i ever could. he made san francisco his and i settled into oakland. we'd take turns crossing the bay, mostly it was my turn, my turn to sit on the rooftops of his apartment buildings and stare out at different neighborhoods. i always wanted to take pictures but never remembered a camera. i'd look as long as i could without blinking as if the treetops and victorians would burn themselves into a concrete image. i've been able to do that on four separate occasions -- intentionally save and later call up a distinct memory like a [moving] photograph. they are each seconds long, and their colors slightly sway when i close my eyes. one of his rooftops made it. he wasn't even in that memory, but he permeated it. he permeated my entire life, even past childhood. even the little, inconsequential scenes. i never thought about growing adult with someone who witnessed your whole history, someone who is growing right alongside you. i never imagined what that would be like, and i'm one to imagine everything. remember, he is the one who flies. his wanderlust has taken over again. four san franciscan years and i cried tonight when he left because i am certain we'll never have this proximity again. continents are much bigger than bays. 10:56 pm - 03.28.04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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