Magnolia Moments

Underneath the magnolia tree the dead leaves gather like some leaf burial ground.
Once a deep, Scarlet's picnic dress green, they are now brown and curled up along the edges like small boats. If dropped in a creek or pool of water, they could easily float.

As a child, I used to pretend these leafy vessels were floating in some heart of dark, darkness. The impression must have been stirred from the only VHS my grandmother kept in her house, a copy of "The African Queen."
She was a huge Humphrey Bogart fan.
"He's old!" I used to protest.
"He's dreamy..." she would object. "And he wasn't always 'old', you know."

We would drink hot cokes from the can and watch Bogart fight against the fiery Katherine Hepburn. Somehow the pair ended up loving each other at the end.
I assumed, at the time, this was how all boy-girl relationships resulted--in love.

Every time my grandmother took a sip of her coke, she would let out a raspy, extended "ahhhh," as if each individual gulp was a refreshing experience.

I've since realized that Bogart was perpetually old, no matter the circa: forehead wrinkled, eyes droopy, a tired sort of grin.
He didn't share the youthful essence of a Jimmy Stewart or Fred Astaire.
Now I understand the dreamy qaulity with which he grabs Ingrid Bergman's shoulders and speaks those immortal words: "The problems of three people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

It was just like the humble, stalwart Bogart to point out an ironic truth. Audiences so desperatley wanted the star-crossed, Paris-lovers to forsake duty and country and run off together into that smoky sound stage beyond.
Meanwhile, the real world was falling to pieces; WWII an unavoidable reality.

Still, "We'll always have Paris" simply never cut it for me.
It raises an inevitable question: are memories enough?

As the character Sally argued to Harry on their 18 hour drive to New York in "When Harry Met Sally," perhaps Ingrid didn't in her heart of hearts want to stay:

Harry: Of course she wants to stay. Wouldn't you rather be with Humphrey Bogart than the other guy?
Sally: I don't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca married to a man who runs a bar. That probably sounds very snobbish to you, but I don't.
Harry: You'd rather be in a passionless marriage -
Sally: - and be the First Lady of Czechoslovakia -
Harry: - than live with the man... you've had the greatest sex of your life with, just because he owns a bar and that is all he does.
Sally: Yes, and so would any woman in her right mind. Women are very practical. Even Ingrid Bergman, which is why she gets on the plane at the end of the movie.

I love that scene.

Despite the piano's haunting melody and the way the moonlight cuts through the blinds against the walls; despite the warmth of a moment past....we all have to realize sooner or later that we cannot stay in Casablanca.

Sometimes, we have to leave the past behind; being happy enough with the memory of simply wonderful.

Besides, as Sam reminded us, love will replay itself--like the VHS on my grandmother's televison--as time goes by.

loosing faces

One looses faces and voices in a lifetime, as one looses the passage of time. 

"Has it been six months or seven?" a lost lover might ask themselves.  

Was it his laugh that had shook her, or his eyes? 

A moments pause and one recalls--the memory returned by the turning over of a picture or hearing the familiar tink of a song. 

"Of course it has been six--you swore you'd never forget the day." 

Eyes and laughter flash against the backdrop of your eyes--slow and colored in the shades of remembrance, brown and gray.

You give a lot to make things stay--you give love and kisses and long stares. You forsake better judgement for it--living with out taking account. All attempts to rewind and replay time, like some VHS out of sync and date. 

Now, instead of embracing today, your letting tomorrow go on and on and on in pursuit of yesterday.  Like a record player on a starry night; the party guests dance and lap up minutes like champagne. They cling into the night--their rhythms fantastic. 

I've learned in my loosing of faces and voices, discovering the freedom of beginnings and ends. 

Why let the music drone on and on--you can't neglect the coming of Morning. 

She peeks her eyes over the horizon; she rolls out of bed and with sudden purpose, wakes the world. 

You drink now like ambrosia--you believe in its relevance. How much safer to believe in something that has a measure of beginning and end. Even the god's, with all their nectar, rallied and fought for time. 

I find safety in the temporary, seems to keep my heart less open to the black hole of the moment--the moment where you give and give in hopes of forever. 

Nothing is forever. 

Be careful of being sucked into the void,  loosing your sudden purpose to wake the world.

ceb

 

A new world, 

this blog. 

A friend mentioned 

once not liking the word

"blog." 

Well, it was more that

it was just such a mundane 

catchphrase...at least I think 

that is what they meant. 

Anyway, I sorta agree. 

I write endless scribbles 

on endless pieces of paper and napkins

and notebooks. 

I have a love affair

with notebooks. 

I can't stop buying them. 

I'm actually writing a story based off of that very dilemma. 

A girl can't stop buying notebooks. She has dozens of them . The only problem...she hasn't written in a single one. She can't seem to allow herself to begin writing in them. Somehow, she is afraid. Still, the newness is addicting. 

Just like her empty notebooks, she is also afraid to start her life.

She is afraid of the newness, because its something she can't control. 

Unlike a notebook bought at the last moment in line, placed on the shelf, and left to wait till an appointed time.  

I hope to have the book printed so that one side is the book....then you turn it upside down and it is a blank notebook....so that the reader can write in it....or something symbolic like that. 

Well, I'm breaking down my barrier to this digital, clicking, spider web of an Internet, blogging world. Perhaps, when I embark on that new, blank life before me....this might be like a map of how I got there. A click away, so that I can't loose the poem or paragraph dashed upon some random page or half a napkin on my way down to the subway, or at the bottom of my bag.