I got a chance to revisit this city that has held me for the last 20 odd years... without a car for the time being...
The dance show I'm working on finishes around 10pm... I'm a 6 block walk from a friends loft...
His loft is 2 blocks from where I settled right after leaving school... when anything felt possible... cynicism hadn't taken hold... George the First was running what I knew f the world... Jesse Helms was trying to cut the balls off of any "faggot" artist he could get his phobic mitts on... Robbie Conal was beginning to plaster the streets with beautifully grotesque portraits of the folks who were trying to tell us how to live or die...
Some friends & I decided to continue the experiment we had started in a petri dish called CalArts... stupid, hungry, hopeful & mostly honest... at least with the audience... we made damn good work & we starved... it felt like the center of the universe...
So I sat on the roof of my friends loft... smoking too many cigarettes, nursing a PBR... peering down the Angeles alley towards the last century and the beautiful chaos that was my life then...
I was so grateful to be in a time and a space that reminded me of how much uncertain promise the city had once held in front of me.
ok... so, tonight, after watching a few films projected onto the wall of this funked up glorious arts warren... (the original cut of "The Warriors" & "Heavy Metal Parking lot")... I decide to walk home. I live in Echo Park. About 3 miles from the center of downtown LA...
This walk took me through so much of my past. Towards so many glimpses of a future for this city... A future that may of may not wrap around mine. I have spent over half my life here... good, bad, transformative & indifferent... but what next?... what of the second half?... what of more?... my Great Grandmother... Nanny... she carried herself through 108 years...
The question is not so much, "if" I move on from here... not even "where" is really in question. Mostly it is about when & how. When seems to be caught between very soon & not so long from now. How?... Guided by my own hand or driven by the fates. With a bang or a whimper?... not sure
in the end... I remembered why I came here... and why I stayed... I remembered that I had been a part of some good & beautiful things that managed to climb over the crap decisions and balance my time here towards the truthful...
what breath now? what new? what undone?
The dance show I'm working on finishes around 10pm... I'm a 6 block walk from a friends loft...
His loft is 2 blocks from where I settled right after leaving school... when anything felt possible... cynicism hadn't taken hold... George the First was running what I knew f the world... Jesse Helms was trying to cut the balls off of any "faggot" artist he could get his phobic mitts on... Robbie Conal was beginning to plaster the streets with beautifully grotesque portraits of the folks who were trying to tell us how to live or die...
Some friends & I decided to continue the experiment we had started in a petri dish called CalArts... stupid, hungry, hopeful & mostly honest... at least with the audience... we made damn good work & we starved... it felt like the center of the universe...
So I sat on the roof of my friends loft... smoking too many cigarettes, nursing a PBR... peering down the Angeles alley towards the last century and the beautiful chaos that was my life then...
I was so grateful to be in a time and a space that reminded me of how much uncertain promise the city had once held in front of me.
ok... so, tonight, after watching a few films projected onto the wall of this funked up glorious arts warren... (the original cut of "The Warriors" & "Heavy Metal Parking lot")... I decide to walk home. I live in Echo Park. About 3 miles from the center of downtown LA...
This walk took me through so much of my past. Towards so many glimpses of a future for this city... A future that may of may not wrap around mine. I have spent over half my life here... good, bad, transformative & indifferent... but what next?... what of the second half?... what of more?... my Great Grandmother... Nanny... she carried herself through 108 years...
The question is not so much, "if" I move on from here... not even "where" is really in question. Mostly it is about when & how. When seems to be caught between very soon & not so long from now. How?... Guided by my own hand or driven by the fates. With a bang or a whimper?... not sure
in the end... I remembered why I came here... and why I stayed... I remembered that I had been a part of some good & beautiful things that managed to climb over the crap decisions and balance my time here towards the truthful...
what breath now? what new? what undone?
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
cutepillowdancer:
I love you my pillow
cutepillowdancer:
me