From the window this morning a slow Beck song flew into my chest as I breathed in deeply, and it stayed there; this song with butterfly wings that refused to budge. From the jeepney to the train to the bus to each step from the bus stop to my building, where I watched shadows dutifully follow the well-dressed people hurrying along Ayala Avenue, that song stayed put. I predict it will give me bronchitis, tuberculosis, asthma, all kinds of breathing disorders, this song in my chest, because it’s a beautiful slow song that seems to have carved a niche in my lungs. It won’t leave.
I tried to shrug the song off; you see this is quite different from a last-song syndrome, because as I said I awoke with the song already in my chest. Drinking coffee might perhaps remove the song, but halfway thru my second glass I realised it would not work. I’m tired of fighting for this lost cause.
I have unfinished thoughts, interrupted musings. I fail to write half of them down. I don’t mix perfectly the colours I see in my head. My dreams are cut in the middle; lying still in bed for ten minutes, I can easily retrace the first half of my dream and consciously construct the second half, but I’m never satisfied, never never … one is never satisfied when the flow stops.
Everything lacks grace, like the grace of pink satin floating slowly to the floor, like feathers gently landing on a rock, like the swelling of an orchestra, like a smile slowly cracking, or moons rising. Does one enjoy so much to skim a hand along the smooth water to create disturbances? There is excitement in misbehaviour, I know. I am aware of it. I wouldn’t want things to go smoothly… that would be boring and unnatural, but yes, I guess I long to see something gracefully falling, an action so smooth it almost looks the way wind would, a follow-through.
I like watching tennis. From the bleachers I still remember the follow-through of the whole action of swinging rackets, that beautiful motion – one long move that captures a giraffe’s neck, a peacock’s crown of feathers, a flamingo’s stance, a figure of 8 – it’s still etched somewhere in me, just like a song taking over your chest. Maybe you don’t realise it, but I’m sure you all remember exactly how it feels.
