Looking Up

Howdy, you.

How often do you look up? I'm not talking metaphorically here, although you do know how much I love metaphor. I am talking physically taking your chin and raising it, aiming your eyes skyward? I know the Discovery Channel tells us that evolution decided we should look straight forward lest the sun burn our retinas, but tell me, how does a flower see the sun so clearly? Certainly there is more to us than hairy stamen.

I live 31 steps above the rest of the world. I stood on my porch tonight, gloved and coated, in the cold of the Pittsburgh dark, watching cars pass by. There is a guy in a striped black hat who drives a white Ford Mustang, the new one they designed that looks at the world with a rectangular grill and big eyes. I love this car. I'm torn between wanting a sports car and wanting a hybrid. One is my masculine side, my if-I-can't-fuck-it-I'll-kill-it side, and the other is my come-to-me-my-little-friends side, the one that likes candles because they smell nice and not the side that likes candles because I cannot fuck the wax so it might as well burn up.

The driver was a young guy. From his profile and gait I guessed he was mid-20's. You can tell how old someone is by how they hold themselves. He walked with a thin, kind of curvy gait, and I knew he was young because even though he was walking home he didn't look like he had a clear idea of where he was going. It was 2AM - where else are you walking? You are either walking home or are you walking to that girl's house wishing you were walking home.

He loped by, 31 steps down, and I heard him cough into the night. I stood, in my colorful scarf and leather coat, watching him, and he never looked up. He never knew I was there. Last night I felt the need to hide behind the garbage cans beside my house when people walked by, but tonight I realized that nobody looks up anymore. We only look forward, hoping the blinding light of up doesn't find us before we're ready.

I had a telescope once. It belonged to an uncle who is no longer an uncle, and I only used it once in five years. I pointed it at the yellow moon. The orb filled the entire viewfinder. It was a cold night, like tonight, and I stood in the backyard of my mom's house and gazed up, blinded by its cold, white light. I realized that even the reflection of the sun would burn me, even the mirror image of truth would scald me, and I looked anyways. I put my hand over the viewfinder, saw as the white sphere filled the creases in my skin, and I knew why I looked up so rarely. What if we see ourselves up there? What if, for a moment, we glimpsed what it was to be really ourselves, our base, beautiful selves, and what if we melted right there, a little puddle on the stalks of the grass, reflecting moonlight in our droplets?

There was a black cat outside tonight. He walked slowly in-between the cars, as though some morsel of warm food would jaunt out in front of him and he could have a warm meal delivered to him, Meals-on-Legs style. I watched him edge between the wheelbases, and as I sipped my Riesling and puffed on my cowboy killer, he looked at me, straight in the eyes, 31 steps up. I froze. We watched each other for a long time, the white patch on his tail burning in the moonlight. Mentally I offered him milk. He walked gingerly on the asphalt, careful not to tread too heavily on the earth, but I guess he knew I didn't have any milk in the fridge and so he looked away, continuing his cautious parade down the street. I wondered where he would sleep tonight. I didn't have milk, but I have a bed. A couch. Peanut butter. I could have fed him, but silently he knew he would be better off in the cold. I hope he's okay. Black cats have it about as bad as a cat can.

I looked down, and saw a few green stalks pushing their way through the leaves and snow. I wondered what it was that had drawn them up so early in the year. They stood there, huddled together for warmth, and I realized that maybe the moon had tricked them, had summoned them prematurely, had promised the warmth of the sun and then delighted in watching them freeze as it does, hovering above the Earth. The moon was a razor tonight, slicing through the cloudless sky horizontally across the galactic veins. It was not the harvest moon, the Moon of bounty. It was the old moon, the cold one, the one who stood by motionless as the Earth boiled and seethed, writhed and groaned. I came inside after only two cigs. It was colder tonight, and since I had three last night I wanted to feel like I was making progress. I'll have one tomorrow, and then none this weekend. I'm learning how to dance with darkness, with the razor moon, and so far, so good.

The car across the street has a boot on it. It's pressed against the pavement like a claw. The car is one of those ultra-liberal things, purple and pretentious and, now, booted. On the back are bumper stickers like "Casey 2006" and "Punish Bush and Cheney for War Crimes" and "Life is short. Dance naked," and I wondered at how easy it was to ruin a color like purple. I only have one bumper sticker, and it is a picture of a stylized Darth Vader with a caption that reads, "Who's your daddy?" Yes. It is subtle, placed unassumingly in the lower-left corner of my bumper. I put it there because it is impossible to find my car in a parking lot. I cannot count how many times I have stuck my key into a green Honda Accord that wasn't mine. This is really the only time I miss the Thunderbird. I could spot its faded purple/blue roof from across the state. Now my vehicle fades into the sea, a wooden roof in an ocean of wooden roofs (shouldn't that be spelled "rooves"?), and I struggle to find myself, sticking my key in all sorts of crazy people's cars, hoping to eventually find my own so I can drive home with my curtain rod and curtain.

I've never been booted. When I first moved to Squirrel Hill I got about 5 parking tickets for being on the wrong side of the road on a Tuesday. I would be a meter maid, only my soul is not worth whatever they're paying. [If you hate children, become a meter-maid, because ultimately that is who's blood you're consuming. Small, small children with big, brown eyes.]

So I stood there, trying to figure out if I felt bad for the booted purple car, or whether I was just glad they never booted me, locked me into the ground, clawed me to the floor. The black cat seemed unimpressed. He'd seen it all before. Not even the frozen pavement fazed him anymore. Somehow, he would eat. He would survive the moonlight.

As you can tell, I don't really have anything to write about. Nothing happened today that I can share on the blog. No one really needed me. I didn't save any kittens or small children. I just wanted to write to you, to imagine you writing back, scolding me for smoking, offering to knit me something to keep me warm at night. I wanted to feel the blank page, to feel like somewhere in the world I could emit enough light to cut something, put some black on white. I bet you those green stems will live, if only out of spite. I kept the ash off of them. They deserved better, daring to grow when all that was around them had given itself to the freeze. That is what I feel I am doing, growing in spite of. Blossoming even though the air is thin and frigid, hoping to catch enough of the Sun to bear me through the night.

Thank you for being yellow light. We'll talk soon.

love,
m