Flu and Vegas

Las Vegas is supposed to sicken you just a tiny bit.  Maybe it's the over the top opulence, the over-done themes, the gastro-fest restaurants or even the non-stop drinking.  Any of those are likely to cause a sensation that is different than the normal.

But being in Vegas on the outskirts of a flu is just mean.  It robs the body of the resilience needed, it tears down any sort of goodwill offered, it just makes a body raise its hands and basically say:  go ahead, shoot me.

I can only remember a few times when my body felt like this...felt stripped raw like freshly peeled from the inside, the night a bout of coughing and cold sweats mixed with a ravaging fever.  Or a lack of the ability to taste anything good, the mouth soured by a thousand bags of sweet lozenges and enough green tea to cause anything except a cringe.  But a mind just worn flat, quietly tired, shutting down non-critical systems to merely just breath, and focus on fixing...ridding of all distractions so that I don't tempt a nice warm thought to bounce in to just be obliterated by a coughing fit.

But there is that one elixir I still sometimes hold out hope for...an emergence in a room darkened to speed sleep, the air cool to not raise the dryness and cause issues...and that is the ghost form that perhaps you would take if just to come in and merely place a cool hand on a sweaty forehead.

Even just to do that I think would make me feel a billion times better.

Even if I only dreamed it....so far I haven't yet though.

You

Like the steam rising from a glass-encased shower, blurring the warming waters but heating the air inside a winter bathroom.

Like when you've been riding hours in a car to a beach that is just pinking up with sunset and you remove your socks and your shoes and you feel the heat of the street then the grass then the sand and you stop and let the skim of waves come greet you and the water is foam and salty and warm.

Like when you enter into a bakery and luxuriate in the smell of fresh bread.

Like when the bartender slides a frosty glass of beer towards you, your hand cooling as it holds the drink, and you take the first foamy sip of quenching ice cold alcohol.

Like a pile of pillows that just invites you to bed, cool and linen, in an afternoon rain that slides down the windows and provides a white-noise for you to collapse in, succumb to, and rest a weary mind.

Like when you see lightning far away at night.

Like the first fireflies of summer, signaling the warm humid evenings are upon us, with ice melting in our glass as we feel sunburn just starting to form.

Like the delicious slip into soapy warm waters of a tub.

Like when you are driving and traffic is unusually light and your favorite song comes on the air and your windows are down and you turn the volume up as high as it can go.

Like when you see an Ice Cream stand in the heat of an afternoon and you realize you haven't had an ice cream cone in forever but you remember the exact taste of one,  the crunch of the waffle cone and the drip that you licked off of your finger.

Like when you bite the first hot bite of pizza and it's too hot to completely eat and the cheese strings itself between your mouth and the rest of it and it smells like pepperoni and red pepper flakes and you just hold it until it is cool enough to eat.

Like when you kiss somebody eating a life savers, and the candy sweetness mingles with the warmth of pliable lips.

Like when bourbon warms you in a winter.

Like the first star in a purple evening...or maybe a planet...but something to direct your gaze upwards in a sky.

Like in a departure and the clothes still smell like you.

All of these things...daily, seasonally...nightly...they are just sweet and simple reminders.

Of you.

Calligraphy

From where he stood at the edge of the bed he could just see the top of her head, her hair slightly askew against the bright white of the cotton duvet.

He held a piece of paper that seemed to be gripped.  He had rolled it into a tight circle.

In it were a ton of words.

"irreplaceable"

"uncommonly warm in even the slightest of hugs"

"an unexpected kiss in the middle of the day is like a kiss on a prom night"

"chocolate syrup eyes, candy colored lips"

A collection of words that he had painstakingly tried to write her and make it legible.  His weakest point was when the pen met the paper...he might be able to write but he suffered terribly at handwriting.

He had wanted to describe her like a painting...a pastel.  Broad colors versus cold specifics.
He had wanted to describe her like a aged bourbon...complex in its tastes...the first warm notes and the very last hints.

He wanted to describe her like a summer day with sand and sun and tan lines and the scent of sunscreen.  He wanted her to be like an autumn fire, of burning leaves...

Mostly he wanted her to feel completely and utterly unique...despite the fact that his words had multiplied over times and years and he sometimes faltered at adequately describing the uniqueness that he felt.  That was his limitation...that was his ignorance.

He couldn't properly tell her about the billion things he worshipped about her because he only knew a million words.

He crumpled up the paper in his hands and let her sleep.  He knew he could always try to convince her that she was indescribable.

The Curvature of the Earth

In the air with 200 others it is infinitely hard to survey the millions of people below.  People with their own thoughts and dreams, people with their faces upturned to watch a plane taking people away...people jealous of travelers, people not even caring about a plane in a sky.

It is often when not on the ground that the grandiose world is revealed, when you can see the arc of the horizon and the colors that get smeared across the day.  You gather in the full aperture of the earth and it can be humbling...making one feel exceptionally small and disconnected.

Likewise the long miles of distance can be overwhelming and disconcerting...acres spooling and inserting themselves...the earth becomes an obstacle.

But at the same time the vast space can push my mind towards you...perhaps if I looked hard enough in the distance I might catch a glimpse.  I might see a light.  I might see a hand.  The clear air limits what I can see, and therefore limits what I induce my mind to be distracted by.  I see the vast beauty, the gorgeous colors, the earth, the air, the wind and mountains.  I wish I could share this view with you...I wish I could be alongside.

In my mind though you are already there.

Arrivals & Departures

Colors...that is what he remembered most, the colors of people and airplanes, light splintering and reflecting itself through the great glass panes...the nearness of the noise of take-offs as jets thrust themselves against gravity and carved white smoke patterns across the blue air.

Strangers...that is what he remembered most, the looks on people's faces, climbing out of the coach section and hauling heavy luggage down from the compartments.  The shuffle off the plane, balancing acts as one slowly moved towards the front.  People sharing the same cockpit air for hours, now looking for chance to breathe in the outside.

People were no longer allowed to greet at gates, nobody was there except the airline gate agents to help you find your way.  If you were at your final destination there might be an area just outside the TSA secure zone where loved ones could wait, trying to pick your face out of a crowd.  Some held up signs...He would never have done that.  He would never had needed to...her face was instantaneously recognizable...he could pick her out of a crowd.  The tones of her skin, the slight color on her lips.  The way she walked.  He had memorized it, having seen it so many times.

Hardly in arrivals...mostly in departures.


But it made him want to travel even more, to come see her...to come find her.  To arrive at her.  Mostly to stay with her.

Feel the weight of her against him in an embrace.  Feel the way she eclipsed all thoughts and concerns and made them disappear. Made worry go away.  Made the cool of an evening change into a room with a fire.  A room with her in it.  An airport with her in it.  He could still feel her in it. A world with her in it.

Smoothing the rough sewn pieces of their arrivals and departures.

San Anton

She was a blend, she was a spice.

an additive to a life that might be otherwise bland...neutral.  Gray.

Emulsifying the colors and the skies of the Riverwalk, San Antonio (San Anton to singers and poets) is a melting pot of city with backgrounds in a variety of cultures that blend and blur until becoming one unique locale.

But it is inherently Tex-Mex, as the foundational palette.  The hint of spice, the hint of peppers, jalapeños and anchillo...the dried variety of the poblano.  Rough hewn hands flip tortillas on placas without needing any tongs...sharp knives carve onions and bell peppers.  The colors are mostly like Mexico's...red and green...and they mix perfectly atop a street taco or as a side.

She was just like that, this additive color and warm heat emanating from her touch...she contained within her the tiniest of drops that could turn my world into colors.

She was the river that drifted across all the vast desert.  She reflected the lights and in quiet pools sometimes even stars.

But there were very few cities when she could walk outside in a cool evening air, the perfume of the foods and cultures drifting, the multi-colored lights and the boats slaloming on the river and let that be somewhat of a mirror...to the tones and spices she added to me even when so very far away.

Like in a place called San Anton.

Rob Thomas' Hands

He was a singer.
His voice was modulating and it created a stir in her.  A stir that I would never, could ever replicate.  He could combine words with song and sounds and it was a distinct disadvantage to me...if ever he rolled up beside us as we walked on a sidewalk and he showed up in a horse-drawn carriage or a taxi or a limousine (most likely scenario) she would scatter away from me and leave me staring at her back as she rode away with him.

I got it.  I understood.

And I loved the little girl reaction he created, the visceral thrill, the clench in the throat, the heart beating....I could never do that.  I was too familiar.  I had faults.  We had arguments and disagreements. We had history.  He had albums and had never had the pleasure of talking to her.  He may or may not have even noticed her.  It was his loss, according to me.

Meanwhile,  she actually rose and descended each day for me, and stayed as bright as a planet.  He was her fantasy.  I was perhaps an annoyance.  Maybe that's too strong.  But maybe I was a known object.  A non-singer.  I didn't certainly enjoy the celebrity status and I get that fact.

I'm not really sure.  I just never heard her talk about anything so exhilarating to her, certainly not any other men except maybe Harry Connick Jr and I guess I could live with that...he's a bit dreamy.  but there were no other subjects that created the dance of her eyes and her pitch in her voice notching up except him.

So when she finally got to touch him, touched his hands...at a concert that she frequented around her birthday...it was probably at the very least interesting.

She had a sun in her world.  A star.  And she exulted in the possibilities.  She warmed to the fantasies and she, for a very brief but intimate moment was with somebody that she felt impossibly unattainable.  But she had him, albeit briefly.

I only could wish that she understood that that ebullience was what I felt every day...without even touching her.
But I will continue my mere writings...without a song or sound.  Perhaps these will form the skeletal frame of fingers that might replicate the structure of a hand that might be clenched when absolutely needed.

Don't know.