Songs from a Room

In the familiar old heat of my beloved 'back room' last night, as is my habit, between 2 and 5 AM, I was watching films. On these dense airless summer days, it's always a little warmer in here, as it is colder in winter. We're fortunate to have this 'extra' space-- old, soft sofas and chairs-- the TV-- my little closet writing nook, random guitars and basses on the furniture... and a wall of books, of course.  The ceiling fan occasionally makes a sort of ticking sound, like the proverbial clock on the wall... my only company.

I have lived in this apartment far longer than anywhere else-- far longer than I anticipated.  I can look around and remember the various configurations of this room-- when it was virtually empty, and children used it for train layouts and games-- when two sofa beds were often made up to accommodate overseas guests and stragglers-- when I struggled with a novel, staring up at an enormous fat monitor with a blue screen and white text, dreading the alarm which signaled the dissolution of my solitude into breakfast-prep and getting my son to school on time.

There is a fire escape outside one window, although I rarely go out there now... an occasional visiting bird reminds me, but city ordinances forced us to remove plants and other 'hazards' (an old rocking chair, etc.)... and now this has become a bit like my personal Proustian cork-lined refuge.  In the back of these old buildings which converse easily via courtyards and alleys, nights are quiet. I hear the hum of air conditioners and motors but little else besides the strange sort of symphonic white-noise of the city which always feels about to crescendo and then doesn't.  It's indescribable, this soundtrack; not many are privileged enough to hear it... but there are these films I see--- mostly the kind with little dialogue-- which use this sort of atmospheric noise like an orchestral score. 

Still in the swampy-thick of this Nersesian mega-novel, I feel a little hallucinatory and anxious about the status of my city.  On the screen now there is a 1960's shot from an airplane approaching Manhattan-- no WTC towers, but the poetic density of older New York.  It feels so vulnerable.  We watch air-strikes in Gaza, in other parts of the world... vintage footage of post-war destruction... and I cannot fathom that I have earned some right to feel so 'safe' here in my back room which from the heat-emitting effects of cable boxes and laptops is warmer than the outside temperature.

Then there is a mediocre c. 2000 movie with Ben Affleck.  He's a wonderful actor-- and his inherent intelligence shines always.  Here he is young and boyish, as I always remember him; his teeth are still his own-- he transcends the banal dialogue and we believe him; he is himself.  The version we have now of a darkened and disgruntled playboy is not right.  Forget about sexual appetites and attractions... he doesn't belong with the Beyonce'd version of Jennifer Lopez he got this year.  He's complicated and critical and, like the best of us, a little self-loathing. 

But it was so long ago-- the making of this film.  He was a boy.  I was a considerably younger woman and actors like Brad Pitt were in their 'young' prime. As we see these people age, it reminds us that we are that much older, that we are uncomfortably close to some kind of final denouement.  I inventory various configurations of my life, often; my son doesn't remember details of his childhood-- maybe it was the intrusion of technology which distracted from absorbing the minutiae of reality. Personally, I can provide an inventory of my mother's old 1950's kitchen-- the black cast-iron trim on the maple cabinets, the green formica and the deco table and vinyl-upholstered Breuer-style chairs.  I can open the pantry and see the various jars of sweet pickles and mustards and relishes-- the ketchup bottles and cans of sardines and tuna.  I can read the labels and smell the vaguely cinnamon/cardamon scent of her little collection of bottled spices.  

And still I wonder when these things will fade--- when I won't be able to mentally circle my second-grade classroom and name every child in the seats. Some of my friends don't remember their teachers' names.  In school I was often told I had a sort of not photographic but phonographic memory.  I could recall conversations in real-time.. I could hear voices as though played back in a certain core of my brain.  Not so much anymore, but a few of those moments resonate.

Last weekend I went up to see my beloved neighbor Patricia. She is still smart as a whip, but at 98 she has to admit some frailties. She can barely see now, and it's a struggle to listen to me read to her. Last week I brought up a large book of photographs which really interested her; her comments were astute and enhanced the text. She knew these people and these places, and the backstories.  But I also realized the challenge of 'reading' a photograph-- the way companions must translate reality for a blind person.  There was one in the museum several weeks ago.  He was being wheeled around and his 'minder' was doing a fair job of listing paintings, but not really the job I could only infer this man required.  

So I tried my hardest-- to describe the sense of space-- the distances, the attitudes, how a model's hair was styled, how it had been raining and the streets were reflecting... what the weather might have been from the clothing.  It was tedious.  I exhausted her, and my descriptions were so suffused with personal suppositions and editorializing.  A picture is worth 1000 words; mine were cheap and inadequate.  But for those of us who can see, we take so much for granted-- we waste so much time; we fret and bemoan ridiculous things, we sacrifice to marginally improve our appearances (some of us)... and in the end... we have merely the past, an unappreciated present and a tenuous future. Picture this and picture that, one of my early songs sang in its chorus.  'Picture this, the morning after... the camera won't lie like you.' I still remember these and most of the thousands of lyrics.  Picture that.