The kids are alright

I find I always compare everything to wings or the ocean. Today I got to Redondo and I had nothing to say. Everything, in a way, was just like how I explain everything else. We pulled up, and of course the beach had a weak pulse today seeing as it's Sunday and nothing is ever open beachside on Sunday. Despite that, there seemed to be a few drops of life (actually, a vigorous amount of life) swarming the confusing walkways. After realizing it was Sunday by about the fifth store with the door smack shut in our faces, we decided to see what we could find. Trust me, there's a lot out there--food, clothing or not.

But dammit, I can barely remember where we first stopped. I'm thinking it was that one peaceful store with all the relics, incense, sea shells and books. I think that's right. There's just so much to remember. Anyway, we moved on from there, and I'll tell you--that place was surreal to a pleasurable extent. So we hit place after place, each time deciding $100+ was too much for pretty much anything. I didn't quite get to any real thinking until we crossed the street for about the 10th time. There was a man. An unkempt haphazard kind of man, scratching and pulling on his clothes. He sat like a lily. Yes, a lily. And I know everyone thinks the crown jewel, the craning flower out here is the beach. Perhaps that is true. What is more serene than the ocean? Or the night? Or both at once? But taking time to examine its people is never a beautiful thing. After hearing the tired dragging of the tongue with every "oh my God" and "I'm trying on this, but it's like..." or "and like he said" and "and like she said" and "ugh" and "yeaahhh..." one tends to feel as though their spine is out of place. The ocean practically glimmers with life, yet the wayside beach mongers and rich snob trash are nothing but a shade of gray and a damper on the salt and waves. Back to this man, he didn't say anything. Nothing at all. Maybe it's because no one cared to look at him. Maybe it was because he didn't need to say a thing. Maybe it's because he couldn't say a thing. Yet even still, I will always wonder, no matter how simple it seems, how he's stuck so vividly to my thoughts.

Two blocks down, there was another man. He was the talker. He talked a lot. In fact, he talked so much that he even talked when no one was around. Ironically he sat in front of an army-like jeep making it look like he'd gotten off the ride to hell that was Vietnam (he was certainly too weathered to be coming from Iraq. Then again, war weathers a man, and for all I know, he could've been but 30 years old). Anyway, I wanted to catch what he was saying. Dammit, it could've been brilliant, but I couldn't understand. That brings me to my novel idea--perhaps when I explain, I understand because it's my own state of mind. But perhaps what I'm explaining is really all wrong, only we don't even know it. After all, it seems every time something is explained, something new comes or is seen that makes us rexamine everything.

I did find a nice place called Harmony Works and bought myself a new CD that's proved quite nice on me. Angelique Kidjo--what a woman I've grown so fond of. And of course there's my purple tank top I'm kind of proud of. Yet the tangible seems to mean so much less than the intangible.

Today I realized how the simplest of things can fix the grandest of problems. Part of the reason I rushed out was to avoid the scrapping sound of my fingernails against my skull should an unwanted visitor come. I would say whom, but I choose not to. I like being in this state of not even remembering the dreary nature that sometimes is of life and dreams. Time is the enemy, the battle, the blood, the triumph and the beauty. Today I learned how beautiful life is, but not in the way you'd imagine it to mean.

"Put on all your beads and your beautiful jewels,"

says the groom to his new bride.
But, his first love tells her,

"your smile today could turn into tears tomorrow."

Beauty is not everything, you know

(Angelique Kidjo; "Sedjedo")