The Tale of the Chocolate Tractor

How is it that a chocolate "Easter Tractor" could find its way across the Atlantic only to melt in my room within two hours of receiving it? I had been sent the most wonderful gift from friends across the ocean. I marveled at the perfection of the piece and the travel that it endured. Little did I know that it would become a time based piece that seemed to self destruct in my possession. I stepped from the room for about and hour and a half. I greeted my neighbors. I set up a time to hear music with Miyoko. I ate dinner and returned a phone call. Upon reentering the room I did a double take at the tractor that was now Amoeba-like in its appearance with two eyes looming from the glob. "What in the hell..." I mumbled to myself as I peered in to see the lava flow of organic chocolate. The same fleeting light that has resuscitated "Hokkaido" the tropical plant that my side kick and I rescued two weeks ago in a feral night of poetry, raccoon watching and emergency plant rescue was now destroying my chocolate tractor! Or did it. Maybe I would have never gnawed at the perfect line of the tractor grill, just as I never cared to chew the head off chocolate bunnies. An amoeba on the other hand is fair game for consumption. I need to gain back a few pounds so I am grabbing a spoon and jumping into the flow. So Thank you dear Irish friends...it is exactly what I needed..

Silence

My last few days have been a struggle for silence. It never occured to me how many people expect conversation from me until my voice escapes me. I have been dodging around my building so to try to avoid having to explain that I cannot speak. I leap into the elevator when I see the lady who always wants to speak at length about my haircuts and fashion choices. I sweep in towards the mailbox when I see the woman from Argentina who is never silent. She sees me though, and follows me to the mailboxes, half screaming at me to speak to her. The doorman eagerly asks about my literary adventures and my quest to explore music. I smile at him holding my throught. Miyoko san gives me packages of medicines written in Japanese. They make me laugh as I try to figure out how and why to use them based on the cartoon drawings on the packages.

I lost my voice after avoiding the advances of far too many eager men at work. Anyone and everyone thought themself to be Mr Wonderful, while I simply wanted to do my job. After 27 hours of work in two days, the voice was bound to fail me. I was beginning to fell greatly outnumbered as the last party was for 475 men and 25 women. They threw me to the wolves by having me carry cases of beer through the crowd. Just like parting the Red Sea. My jobs are odd, eventful and always full of drama. It makes me treasure the moments of solitude at home, my new Phalaenopsis orchid named "Inky" due to it's patterning like fuscia ink dropped onto blotting paper, the woodpecker in the tree outside, and curling chartruse leaves on the tree inside my home. I watch silent videos and realize how much I like the little hideaway I have created. Surrounded by books, colorful videos, art and my plants.

Secret Life

I have stopped writing even though my life is at an interesting point. Chaos inspires me and chaos surrounds. I am using my free time to try to organize three or more years of my video DVDs that are not really labeled very well. I get lost in the underwater worlds. I screen the videos and the hours slip by. Then it is always time for something else. I wash, work, commute. I keep myself holed up in my room trying to make back up files before restlessness and obligation tear me away. I need the reassurance of back up files every once in a while. My photographer friend is probably the most organized person I know. I am organized in some ways, but the global crossing have left me to sling images, and videos and writings in various places. I forget what is where. At the storage unit in the town where I was born, I found my fledgling paintings and snap shots from my very first trips abroad. Ticket stubs and stickers from later travels, coin collections from Indonesia, addresses of fellow travellers I met along the way, photos of me and the village , with smiles all around. It brings a odd mix of emotion as I sift through these things. Each triggering an image, a scent, a taste of another time and place. One day I will also look back on these current days as equally inspired moments and realize their importance as well. So I must write and keep track of the wonders around me for later, when time and distance lead to wisdom.

Redirection of inspiration

It is so easy to get off track, to allow fatigue to make you miss everything but the paycheck earning work. I fought back this week aside from the post illness fatigue and the lack of entertainment funds. I managed to carve out some pretty inspired moments in the hours between hard worked days and crashing into bed. I managed an amazing concert by a 20th Century French Composer, a French film on political asylum seekers, a gallery viewing, a book lecture, two museums and even spoke tiny bits of four languages and learned several words in sign language without ever spening a hard earned dime.

I marveled at dark wood concerthall stained blood red with light. I was inspired by a Chimp who knew more sign language than our entire cynical audience combined. I crawled into the dark red welcoming seats at the theater and endured two hours and fourty minutes of a film that has changed my perspective on life and my place in it.