"...But now hold me like a baby that will not fall asleep. Curl me up inside you and let me hear you through the heat..." --Suzanne Vega
This song makes me want to cry. WHY am I listening to this mix-tape? It's this collection of bittersweet love songs that I labelled "Coffeehouse Mix," lest somebody pick it up, listen to it, and ask, "who'd you make this for?" I made it to play in my walkman when I'm sitting in coffeehouses minding my own business and sipping my latté, okay?
Helena, you don't HAVE a walkman...
Oh. Right.
"...I can still smell you on my fingers and taste you on my breath..." --Beth Orton
Some college stuff came today in the mail. Some financial aid things that say "REJECTED" on them. I don't know who rejected them. I don't know why they rejected them. I'm very confused. I have to go back to this woman who's helping me with all this stupid paperwork and beg for more assistance.
She said to me, last time I saw her, "If you go to Washington this summer, you'll never come back."
I asked if she'd ever been there. She said yes. I wanted to ask her what she's doing here. I didn't dare. People don't like to talk about the specifics of the Binghamton Curse, that is, what exactly drove them back here.
I'm sitting here listening to love songs and thinking about Washington. Just twenty-eight days, and I'll be in Seattle. Why, exactly, are you going to Seattle again, Helena?
I don't have any idea.
Why Seattle, why not visit Mike in El Paso, or Katy in Washington DC, or some online kids from Boston, or David in North Carolina? Why not just take a trip anywhere, anywhere -- buy a national paper like USA Today, cut out the United States weather map, point to a spot, go there... Missoula, Montana; Davenport, Iowa; Cleveland, Ohio; San Francisco, California; Memphis, Tennessee; New Orleans, Louisiana... Just touch down wherever my finger falls on the weather-map. U.S.A. Today.
"Today is whatever I want it to mean..." --Beth Orton.
Why Seattle? I give the standard answers: I have friends there. Several friends, whom I haven't seen in a long time. I want to make my pilgrimage to see the town where Twin Peaks was filmed. Seattle: home of world-renowned coffee and music. Seattle: setting for several of Tom Robbins' books. Seattle: rain and mountains. Seattle: rain and mountains and coffee. Seattle: an hour outside of a magical little town called North Bend, a town with a gazebo, a town with a diner that serves cherry pie, a town I've been waiting to see since I was nine. Seattle: home of Brian and Jane and Neil. Seattle: rain and friends. Seattle: translucent and mystical in my mind. High buildings and no expectations. NO expectations. Coffee and rain and friends and a hug from Neil: like the old days, but not quite.
I'm in search of something I'm quite sure is very near there, but I don't know what it is. Am not sure why I think it's there. Am not sure why I'm compelled to go there, when my fingers could have touched thousands of little towns on the USA Today map.
"Today is whatever I want it to mean..."
Don't know what I want it to mean.
Listening to this mix-tape, falling into it, letting it drape arms around me, smother me, caress me, hurt me...
Why do I torture myself with this shit? I always swear I have no expectations, always promise with my hands solemnly on sacred books. Always say, "this will not hurt." THIS WILL NOT HURT. Said that last time; written right here in this beige notebook from a little shop called Ten Thousand Villages: this will not hurt. The words are obscured by tear-stains.
The words: "I don't want to hurt you."
The response: "You couldn't hurt me." As if I'm a mountain of strength. As if I've got all this courage. As if I'm a stale purple gumball: hard all the way through. As if I've been through it all before. As if I'm untouchable. As if I have any control whatsoever.
[You should have known better... I'm glad you pretended you didn't.]
"...this love is only gonna break your heart..." --Chris Isaak
I say nothing can break my heart without my permission. Permission denied. Access open; permission denied. Silly girl.
Listening to this Duran Duran tune, "Come Undone." Recall listening to this in Albuquerque, driving maybe a million miles an hour, watching the moon set purple in orange-brown land. New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, complete escape, desolation, abyss, longing... Recall the Rio Grande, flowing so smoothly, so shallow, access open, opportunity lost, blessed water knowing exactly what I'm seeking and laughing sweetly, with me or at me I'll never know.
Wrote a little message on a scrap of notebook paper the other day: "You'll never have me." Dropped it into the Chenango River, watched it until it was gone. Brian says not to watch people disappear when you say goodbye or you'll never see them again. Silly girl.
"In this silence I believe I have seen you..." --Sarah McLachlan
Have seen what? Soft skin, black hair, sweet lips tasting faintly of orange juice and alcohol, my Self disappearing, ending up where? Floating down some River that will never have me?
Last night, walking through gentle mists on a warm summer night, tucked inside the U.S. Postal Service jacket from Santa Fe, tucked inside the little brown hippie skirt from Maryland, from Ithaca, from Asheville, from a dozen places that aren't Here, staring at the orange streetlights glazing the pavement, imagining orange strips on highways that aren't Here: the Abyss, the longing, the Rio Grande, Interstate Forty going West... Imagining myself in translucent mystical love, imagining myself to be somewhere else and not knowing exactly where, believing I have to go rescue myself from where I last knew I was, wondering how I escaped and where I might be, and why part of me is still here while the other part is drifting, maybe touching down on a United States map someplace.
"I sang the words I meant... I sang..." --Low
Drinking a little too much red wine on an empty stomach, knowing I need to say this, trying not to say too much, trying to keep this silly promise: access open, permission denied... Swearing on everything sacred that I'm a stale purple gumball. Sitting there by the River, for once not giving a shit where it goes and what it passes on the way... Sitting there, alive, falling into you, letting you drape arms around me, caress me... Humming to myself, drunkenly, a sweet song born in a mystical translucent town with a gazebo and a diner: "Don't let yourself be hurt this time..."
...Sweet little words of caution that didn't stop me the last time... Sweet little words of caution that I flung to the winds and then, hurting, ended up escaping to New Mexico: Enchantment, longing, opportunity lost. Silly girl. Safety first.
Telling you one thing, telling myself another thing, drinking too much and wishing I could make a little bit of sense of all of this and not really wanting to... Black hair, soft skin, low tolerance, too much to say, too many years of different towns and different rivers and coffee and rain. Telling myself that today is whatever I want it to be, and not telling you what I want it to be, because I don't really know, just like I don't exactly know where the Rio Grande ends up, and I don't really know why I want to go to Seattle, and I don't really know why I labelled my love-song mix-tape "Coffeehouse Mix," when I don't even have a walkman, and I don't have ANY idea what I'm looking for or where to find it.
WHY am I listening to this tape?
~Helena*