Subway Garlands

A blind woman, white-but-yellowing shoulder length frizzy hair, tapping white cane and glaringly white summer jacket got on the subway last night as I was headed home. She sat down to the right of me. I was leaning on the metal rods that separate the seats from the standing areas. Like a corral. Though without gates. Late at night, the subway always seems to be bumpier, faster, physically less comfortable and safe. I didn't really mind the chill metal digging in to the softish flesh of my upper right arm as I stood, fiddling with my phone, annoyed that I had nothing to read, thinking about the conversation I'd just had with a friend in a humid bar. Knew it would bruise, but didn't care - at least the cold of the metal separating me from the blind woman reminded my skin that it was going home to an air-conditioned, quiet, place.

It took a little while for me to notice what she was doing with her hands. Peripherally, I'd seen her twisting and turning pieces of white paper. Hadn't thought much of it. Thought maybe it was like fiddling with half-dampened tissue paper when you're nervous. Or like peeling the labels off beer bottles, just without fratboyish friends making goofy jokes about sexual frustration. Or like how I, when I find receipts in my bag, fold them into a concertina pattern and slowly rip them into the sort of strips you use for traditional farmers' carpets in Sweden. My mother swears she will never, ever cut strips like that again from any used clothing - she had to help out when she was a child, for the carpets the women in my family would weave to sell in the village. She had a tiny pair of scissors especially for cutting these strips, even though she was too young to really be allowed to handle sharp things. The scissors were shaped like a flying crane, the beak its blades. Really made for cutting fingernails, but fit a little girl's fingers fine. Years and years later, to amuse me, my grandmother taught me how to make carpets and the long strips of cut up material you need for them - a practical anchoring activity for an overly dreamy child. My mother cracked a plan to sell old Swedish carpets to unsuspecting Americans, who think them quaint and rustic. Now her daughter unconsciously, automatically, shreds receipts in the patterns she hates I was ever taught.

But the blind woman next to me didn't seem to be shredding paper unconsciously. Still standing, I tried to look down to see what she was doing. She seemed to sense this; looked up. Her cane, hanging on the bottom of the bars that were still eating in to my right arm, had multi-coloured hairbands around the top. I tried to see if there was a pattern there. To see if i could work out how blind she was - the hairbands were all the same kind, would, I thought, have felt the same, so if there was a pattern based on colour, maybe she wasn't that blind? I couldn't tell if there was a pattern. Despite the fact that what I joke about as MY "blindness" became possible because I could detect patterns in the eye-charts at school, so I was never busted for being shortsighted.

Maybe she really was blind. Somehow she'd sense me looking. Even though I was hardly looking at all - I didn't move. Would just drop the sight from my right eye, these days covered by the contact lenses that repulsed me for years, into her lap. She'd look up. Not at me, directly, but straightening her back, rocking her head back slightly, sensing something not quite right: me, looking at her. I'd look back to my phone, half-heartedly bouncing a virtual ball against equally fake "bricks".

When she'd relax her head, I'd look again.

She'd notice.

I wondered how'd you'd show that interaction on film. If you could capture the two of us interacting with each other through the lens of a third perspective. And how you'd write stage directions for it. "First you look and then she looks and then you look but neither of you really look". Doesn't quite cut it.

But then she took her left hand and fished some more white paper out of her white pocket. (Can she see contrast? If so, my black-and-white face was pretty unsuited for spying on her. I should have called in a darkskinned blonde). She'd unwind what she'd made already, and add the new paper to what looked to be a garland. Then she'd change it - make the baubles larger. Take a piece of paper away. Put it back in her left coat pocket. Her garland looked a bit like hops: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Mz2AU9jVPTr0eoTJ5LUtBvz4guEd-Ii8VAdb5Q8m3MbNOhpuT3j3UJ4ZBLHuywciHtL93K2NP_PvZAEy4qwxk_4UkvTKRuQcwuz78jWkKJrFC9NCYX8UvQZKjrGam3V1tvbZlZsz6jca/s400/humle.jpg


The train rolled in to her station, a few stops before mine. She slipped her made and remade garland into her pocket. Stood up. "Jean?" a large, dreadlocked black man sitting a-ways away asked. "Yes," she replied across the din, the screeching midnight subway brakes, "I thought I heard your voice." And got off.

Personal Mythology Uncovered

I had "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" by Dylan on loop this morning (don't know how to embed yet, but here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkVGClqrT4).

Since the first time I heard it, when I was maybe 17, it has been my private break-up song. My public ones, the ones i play to friends and sing raucously, voice a-scratched from booze and cigarettes, sleep-deprivation and mouth ulcers, are all angry "Fuck you - I never wanted you anyway, and if I did i definitely don't anymore and you are going to be miserable without me"-songs.

"Don't Think Twice" has always been different. It's only for me, often long before the relationship is actually over. It's the song that has always seemed to echo my subconscious, snatches of lyric crystallizing exactly what's wrong. "I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul" - a controlling ex. "Ain't no use in turning on your light babe/ Light I never knowed" - the boy I was in love with in high school who never stopped loving his ex-girlfriend. "I once loved a (wo)man, a child I'm told" - friends telling me how immature some guy is. "You're the reason I'm traveling on" - done that, got the T-shirts and a smattering of Chinese language to show for it. Droves of music writers have discussed and described it with more impressively geeky insights than I could ever muster - it's a great, canonical folk song. Thing is, when I'm not breaking up with someone, it leaves me cold - it's pretty, but it's not ME.

I was really surprised this morning when it spoke to me again. It didn't seem like the right time - I've made a lot of decisions recently, I haven't been hiding from what I don't want to see. I didn't think I needed it. I don't know what's going to happen with the relationship I was recently in, but I'm not sure it's dead. And on the first couple of playings, I cried - because of the song's history for me, where nothing has ever survived the "Don't Think Twice" stage. I enjoy the brassy-blue sound of the picking, and the fact that Dylan bothers to sing almost in tune - but it has always been a death knell, and I hate it for that. In the past, it has inevitably signalled me emotionally checking out; "I'm on the dark side of the road", "So long honey babe, where I'm bound I can't tell". A self-fulfilling emotional prophecy, brought by my subconscious and Bob.

I didn't feel like the prophecy fit. But I couldn't stop listening to it.

I sent the link to my best friend.

Then remembered us singing it in my scabby old car ten years ago.

Felt safer. Decided not to switch to other, less personal songs.

I kept it on loop, stopped crying and started singing along. Then something completely new hit me about the song.
The lyrics may be beautiful.
They may even sound just like the sort of things I say to myself and others when it's over. But they are PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT!!! How did I not see this before? "Ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe, if you don't know by now"? What the hell is that? Shouldn't he just have told her what was wrong WHEN THEY WERE TOGETHER? And even now when it's over, he's STILL playing that game? (And yes, I realise that i do this. all the time. which is what is terrifying.). And the whole song continues IN THE SAME VEIN. The final verse is the kicker though:

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right


YES, YOU ARE saying she treated you "unkind", Bob - you're mad at her for not "turning on her light", for being a child, for not getting you. And then to add "BUT I DON'T MIND"?!?!?!?! Of course you mind. You wouldn't sing about it otherwise. You wouldn't address her. You wouldn't say you "loved" her, carefully parsing the verb to put in safely in the past - and to give you an emotional "get out of jail"-card if she were to say it back to you in the present. The coldness of "You just kind of wasted my precious time" is just horrifically cruel, searing - you don't do that unless you "mind". And the only thing you've let slip earlier is "Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say/To try and make me change my mind and stay", but you cover your traces with "We never did too much talking anyway", making what you want impossible for the other person to respond to. And then telling her, "But don't think twice, it's alright"? Bob, you are an ass. A passive-aggressive ass.


I just realised how the narration of the song is just so cemotionally conflicted, so addicted to taking the high road, to not having to face rejection, to not having to own up to your own personal weaknesses, celebrating running away because you can't even stand the thought of staying when you've been hurt, and then not even giving the person you were with the "satisfaction" of seeing that he or she mattered...

AND THIS SONG USED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER?!?!?!!

I guess it does make sense then, that it spoke to me today - though for different reasons than it used to. I don't want to be someone who feels that the "Don't Think Twice" approach to relationships is OK. That it's fair. That it makes me a "good" person. That it's free, or romantic, or emotionally sustainable.

Here's to hoping that this part of my personal mythology can be re-written, or at least re-interpreted- that "Don't Think Twice" becomes the song that reminds me that, sometimes, it's better to actually ask for things before its too late, instead of a semi-mysterious augury of "The End".


In all its passive-aggressive glory:

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Cleaning Backstories

Words written on novel since last post: 0
Miami Vice episodes watched since last post: 2.5


My roommate's been on a massive summer-cleaning binge. I guess her closets are now clean and tidy - nine years worth of clutter are in big plastic bags in our little hallway. She's smaller than most of the bags, which somehow strikes me as funny. I wonder where she's kept all the stuff - a bit like how you wonder where really thin people put all the food when they binge.

Am terrible at cutting out backstories. Was talking to a friend the other day who asked how a mutual pal was doing. Didn't know what to say without adding probably-not-OK-to-share-with-other-people details of the mutual friend's recent worries and concerns about her relationship, her career, her family, her place in the world, all that stuff. Just said "Yeah, she's doing really well" and edited in commentary about a new job or living situation or something else both superficial and seemingly significant.
Never realised that my belief that people sort of make sense when you know them would be a problem in my fiction writing. I mean, no-one else but me is ever going to care that one of my characters had braces when she was twelve, ones that her parents got her different coloured rubber bands to keep in place and keep cheerful. And that my other character has slightly askew bottom teeth, not terirbly but noticeably tea-stained, and has kept her old amalgam fillings because she hates going to the dentist, and she's worried that the dentist will pull out all her teeth and give her fake teeth that she has to put in a water glass by her bedside when she sleeps.
(What happens to amalgam fillings when you're cremated? Both she and I need to know this.)

My room is a horrific mess - I still haven't cleaned it following two weeks of houseguests. The middle of the room, the bit I love to dance around in and enjoy the feeling of floorboards, is still consumed by a giant inflatable bed. Still made for people that aren't here. It's easy to fix - just deflate, fold and put it in the closet. I've been walking around it for weeks, and until Saturday there was a reason for that. Why I haven't done anything about it since then is anyone's guess.

Firefly psychologist

My open-ended sabbatical is wonderful. But I need to start mimicking the structure of work - the last few years of wage-slavery have taken their toll on my ability to force myself to write without deadlines (actually, I always sort of sucked at that). Thus the "Not Savage Times" blog - until I get a full-time job, I'm forcing myself to post five times a week. And post the number of words I've written on the novel since the last post. Come rain or shine. I should be able to do this.

Just had an evening run in Prospect Park. After I was done, I walked around the park again, to look at fireflies. They really are everything that's right in the world - sort of plain and generically bug-like on the outside, and then light up unexpectedly. Was standing in the dusk watching them through the trees, loving their randomness and hearing in my inner ear J.M. Barrie children in white frilly dresses sing-songing "I believe in fairies" as they clapped their hands and danced about in their newly polished black leather shoes. So it didn't seem odd at all when a small, white-bearded man in a grey top hat walked up to me on the knoll. "They're lovely, aren't they?" I said. "Yes," he said, and asked "Vhat is your profession?" in an Austrian or Yiddish accent. "I'm a writer," I replied, asking him what he did. "I'm a psychologist," he said, which shouldn't surprise me and didn't. "You're a writer... Where? In zee books, or in freelancing?". "I write fiction," I said, "slowly." His top hat was grey and it looked as if he'd duct-taped some new fabric to it -perhaps it's wearing out and he doesn't want to throw it away. A good hat is hard to find. There was a dent on the nub of his nose - as if he'd rub it there when he was thinking. "You are an artistic voman," he said, and I smiled. "God Bless you," he added and I tilted my head, said "You too" and walked home.