Warm with a deliciously cool breeze the twilight melts into a living
deep blue--sapphire the pure white sliver of moon the dark side cupped
within in a shadowy grey the sky is holy, sacred, blessed.
As I walk waves of music rise and fall in the still night air: musicians are playing outdoors in restaurants and at parties. Indiscernible at first--a tambourine, a voice, drums and then as you near you hear the identifiable whole. Like approaching an old friend you haven't seen in a long time, this sound brings up such a wave of nostalgia in me. From what? Summer camp at Garezers, walking through the dark woods or along the sandy lake shore and approaching the big ugunskurs with large sparks flying straight up from the hot furnace heart of the fire. Jani when we kids would be off making mischief, catching fireflies and our parents drank alus (and stronger) and lustily sang Ligo songs. The night, the dark, the fire, the voices in song. And then later at the Renaissance fairs where I lived a few gypsy-life summers, walking the lanes and seeing into the different gatherings of light within the primitive homesteads resident vendors had set up. The light and music drew in like a magnet those of us wandering the dark. I did get tired of dumbeks and belly dance music and especially of Fleetwood Mac which radiated out from those that had the luxury of electricity. Sad & lonely often at the Fairs I was left to figure out what to do with myself while my lover was visiting with other women. An “open” relationship. I never understood possession but I have suffered for it.
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I hear a voice behind me on the sidewalk. It is an elderly man in a wheelchair wanting to pass. “Oh I'm sorry” and step aside. He spins at quite a pace. As he rolls by, I notice the unusual soft black leather outfit he is wearing that hugs the curve of his rounded shoulders and spine. There is something oddly sexy about it. I can sense the heat of his body warming it and my hand yearns to touch its radiating softness.
Somebody loves him.
It has recently become habit for me when I see a simple human, a flawed human--blemished in some way in spirit, mind or body as most of us are--I think “someone loves her...someone loves him.” As if that is the answer to their existence which otherwise might seem rather pointless. As if the love radiating from another permits them to be here, marred as they may be.
And then I wonder why this justifying emotion remains elusive to me both as an emanation and as an influx. Perhaps because it is too simple; too narrowly defined. Just as hate escapes me. Just as the concept of a sentient, single-entity god evades me. Emotion & thought are far too complex to be confined within the narrow parameters of these words we are given to roll around in our mouths like hard candy.
But somebody loves him.
And for some that is enough.
4/28/2001
Ingrid Karklins