You ever have one of those transcendent moments in the middle of an ordinary day? One of those moments where the events around you line up to form a magical three minute eclipse so beautiful in its nature that you smile a comfortable smile for hours afterwards?
I had one of those moments today. I’d just made a simple and delicious brunch of two over easy eggs and one peeled and sliced up fried potato. The eggs were seasoned just right with a dash of garlic salt and some lemon pepper. The fried potatoes were just the right amount of crisp, and seasoned with the pink Himalayan salt grinder that I’d splurged $5 on a few months back. The runny yolk of the eggs and the salt crisp of the potatoes was just about as close to heaven as a middle aged blue collar American can get on a Tuesday afternoon.
I sat after enjoying that simple but joyful meal, and sipped my tea, and lit a joint. Mingus was playing absentmindedly on my small Bluetooth speaker and I started to read ‘Walk Through Walls’ by the great artist Marina Abramovic. I was good and stoned. The tea sipped like a warm lozenge for my weary heart, and then I read two paragraphs about Abramovic’s first art lesson, and it was such a gorgeous and Molotov cocktail moment that I paused, and suddenly became hyper aware of Mingus being Mingus as I began to read the two paragraphs again. Fuck. Those two paragraphs blew some doors off the hinges in the corridors of my brain, and suddenly I was alive and dancing with the great cosmic orchestra. Mingus was more than Mingus. Marina was just as much guru teacher as artist, and I could damn near see silk diminuendos drifting through the open window sun rays and marijuana smoke.
I took a 4.5 mile walk to the post office to mail some books to Boston, and hardly noticed what music was piping into my earbuds. Staccato stanzas rained like waterfalls in my thoughts and words flowed like spring rivers no army engineer corp can tame.
I skipped my afternoon nap to sit and talk with my cat, and when I sat down to write, my pen raced like it was afraid the candle would burn out before we were done.
This. This. These are the days and moments that I live and love for. When you can spend hours not caring what the clock has to say about your day. When you’re all alone, but your room is full of the laughter and silly talk of a thousand dead and living writers that fill your bookshelves. When the very air around you zings with neon electric magic so breathtaking that you’re at once thrust back into your own internal debate, of whether or not, there be a god.
©️6/27/23
Good shizz Dan.