Twice now I have been tasked with defeating the evil villain from Heroes in my dreams. Last night, I wielded an invisible bow and arrow as one might wield an air guitar during a particularly demanding solo, with great earnestness and intensity... in deep lost-in-the-moment-ness. But looking very, very silly as I wielded.
After movies wrap and TV shows air... when the actors and actresses have moved on to the next script and left their characters to suffer or celebrate their fates... once reusable props have been returned to storage closets and sets have been emptied of all that fiction...
Those family photographs, photographs of vacations, of wives and husbands, of significant events in the lives of people with important stories to tell... framed on mantels, office desks and living room walls. Sitting there, hanging there for us to believe in... sometimes barely noticeable in the shot, other times held up for our careful consideration at key points in a snaking plot... Little rectangles that breathe life into a world of moments that do not exist...
Chinatown was full of lion dances and firecracker smoke and lettuce leaves littered in alleyways where food offerings had been ceremoniously gobbled up then spit back into the crowds as they howled with glee, everyone jockeying for a better view.
And all those cameras. It bummed you out.
I couldn't have cared less. Of all the photographs taken that day, I only have eyes for yours.
"I know it's a little different than what we were thinking... but I think it'll help warm things up... and speak a little more to the whole kids-achieving-their-dreams thing. You know, it's less about technology and innovation and more human, maybe... and it still has a reasonable pulse, tempo-wise... something we could edit to... it'll make the video kind of mosey. I mean, we don't want something too upbeat... the first lines are about a national math and science crisis..."
My argument and I were feeling squishy. This was surely not the legacy John Fahey had hoped for.
Maybe she'll go to Portland—the one on the east coast. She could take over her mother's mill, fly all over the world and write novels from hotel rooms and airport lounges.
Or maybe she'll go to the other Portland—the one on the west coast, where she left a little skin and blood on the road. She found a lot of kindness there.
It's hard not to think about those places as places I would've gone, too. And hard to think about what it'll feel like when the leaves die out this Fall and the view of the apartment she'll leave behind her is cleared.
