Blue Crush
Monday, Aug. 19, 2002 23:56

(I wrote this last night)

Inky is sitting next to me, begging, waiting patiently for me to devote myself to him, but I’ll say the same thing I just told him. I love you. And I can’t not write.

As I stepped out of the theater, surrounded by about twenty kids that all knew each other, I felt like a surfer girl…or rather, my own version of one. I looked down at my Northeastern shirt, and thought about my own friends, and our power, and our life. And I thought about driving around in cars, and going to the beach, and wearing bikinis.

I didn’t even notice when Leigh Huston waved to me, even though I was staring right at her, almost. I wasn’t looking though. Until I saw her wave. And even then…I was quite lost in thought. I was thinking about the movie, and about how much I loved it, and about how much I just knew I was going to love it.

It was 11:15 then, the clock in the lobby said.

And I went into the parking lot, and the warm humid air felt good after being in the dry air conditioned theater. And I watched the kids get into their cars, and watched as they each felt and exercised that power, beneath their feet. And I thought about them laughing all the way home, and what a good time everyone was having. And I stepped into my own car. My first instinct was to pull away quickly, accelerating fast, as I always do. But I didn’t. I took my time. I drove smart instead of teenager fun. I drove where I was supposed to drive, without cutting across parking spaces, and in my leisure, I saw a middle-aged couple dancing to the music in their heads outside their cars. I gushed out loud. I was awestruck.

And then I pulled out onto the road. And I got onto the turnpike. And as the wind began hitting me, and Melissa Etheridge started singing about her father, I thought I was going to lose it. After this terrible day, during this terrible time in my life, something so simple as a movie, and a drive home by myself completely changed me. And in those first blasts, and those first notes, I could feel it. I could feel everything. And I started the emotional sneezing. And I sneezed for a few minutes. And I didn’t know what else to do!

The thoughts were going through my head so quickly that I know I can’t remember them all. But I thought about Melissa and her dad, and death in general, and I thought about the deep red sun I saw on my way to Auburn today, and of the beautiful moon, and how when Inky and I went out last night, we could see everything perfectly. I thought about the surfer girls in their bathing suits, about life, about poverty, about Hawaii and every foreign place, and how everything is a home for something else. I thought about how aesthetically beautiful everything is. I thought about how amazing it is to fly over the pavement at 70 miles per hour, and how even the warm air of an August night feels cool. I thought about Inky waiting for me at home, and how he’d want to cuddle with me.

And I looked at the moon, and I thought about Maggie and Rita, out there somewhere under the stars, camping, being in love. And it made me smile so deeply. And then I thought about how all of my thoughts, and all of this overwhelming emotion that was sending me into either hyperventilation, a tantrum, or an orgasm are the world. And I got that sudden feeling of wow. That feeling I sometimes get when I begin to get a grasp on what it is that I am, and where it is that I am. And I wondered if other people get this. This infinite, beautiful feeling. Beauty. I used to write about how beauty is an emotion. And how sometimes I could just feel it pulsing through everything I touched, and everything I could see and smell. And that was the birth of this name. This InfiniteAaah…back in my more innocent naïve days when I used to feel it so much more often. And now, it’s almost foreign to me, so foreign that I can’t not write this down for fear that tomorrow I may not even remember that it existed. Does it eventually go away for good?

And then I could have almost cried. And I thought about the people that would criticize Maggie and Rita rather than be awed by them, and about people that would rather see an entire society clothed by the GAP than the redwood forests standing tall. And there’s so much in this world that I love, that I cannot stop being passionate about, that other people can’t ever see. There are people who pain me so deeply.

And all I can say is…How?

So yes, today I did something that made me happy. I couldn’t have hoped for better results.

And if anyone dares to either call this sappy and pathetic, or make it seem like it’s about seeing girls in bathing suits, then, you know what? I’m really sorry. But I just had the best drive of my life. Nothing could have felt better tonight.