Writing around Christmas 2010

“Write Pancho, Write” she said as I watched “Anchor Away” on the TCM channel, focused on the scene of a several pianists playing furiously at the same time

I noticed she said write – I remembered then that I had wanted to go and write before the TV grabbed my attention.

“Write? Write what?”

“Write whatever draws you” was the response, but of course we spoke in Bulgarian and my translation is but a mere approximation of the meaning of what she actually said. (pi6i tova koeto te vulnuva, mi kaza tq I neznam koi e na tochnia prevod tuka, mojebi “whatever excites you” ili “impassions you”)

So here I am, typing away. What will I write? I have quite a number of things I penned down in notebooks over the past few months, especially during my trip to the North of Namibia the last two weeks. But I think I will start by writing my story of seeking a man at a local (or actually quite distant) grocery store and the outcome. But in Spanish.

Perhaps one of you can translate it.

Or I will write about the suicide that happened in my neighborhood. On my street, on a house on the same side as ours. LIBRA. In large black capital letters was the first thing they showed on the news after reporting on the suicide. That was the street sign on the corner of our street. Then they showed the wide open street, with our house on the left, before they moved to show the house where it occurred. Yup, surburbia. Urban decay.

And this happened just two days before Christmas day! Tomorrow, I will bake a cake and bring it to the like a good neighbor should. That is what good neighbors do. So I will omit my mistake of going Christmas caroling just outside their house on Christmas Eve singing “Feliz Navidad” as people started and turned away from inside the yard or just gave me a quick expressionless look as they accompanied friends to their cars. That was I guess a mistake. Nonetheless, a young man came from the house to greet me. He affirmed the importance of what I was doing, but made it clear that people were not going to appreciate it, not now. He was calm and warm. “Yeah she committed suicide” he said quite coldly. Why was he visibly calm? How could he even talk to me? Were I a family member, I would not even be able to face the world.

Tonight they had a real big memorial service. Cars parked outside our house, on the other end of the street, round the bend of Andromeda street and right to the end of Libra Street, where the house is, right up to the dead end – the cul de sac. What does the house being close to a dead end have to do with it? Nothing.

I planned to be terse in this post. I have rather been quite exhaustive.

Yet still brief. Life is what happens to you while you are making plans, John Lennon you were so right.