Metropolis

I am having such a truly hard time focusing on anything. Which sucks for a writer on deadline. About the only thing that I can keep a focus on is an interesting mania that's been present ever since I moved into my new place and had the space to have projects.

I've started painting. It's been a fact of life for me for some time that I am a poet and musician who wants to be a novelist and painter. I'm terrible at both, but slowly working. I painted a picture the night L left me, and I was in such a manic mode that I could barely remember it's details until I came back to it. Now I've been doing abstract works, Painting large swaths of color and cutting into the canvas with a razor.

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I ran into a friend of mine, Michael, from the academy. We were never very close but we always enjoyed eachother's company, got into some political trouble together from time to time, and I worked for a while with his boyfriend, whom I also like immensely. I was on my way back to the office but he convinced me to let him buy me a cup of coffee and catch up for five minutes. I believe firmly that if you stay put in any one part of this city, you will eventually meet everyone you know.

But I'm reading Calvino right now, Invisible Cities, so I feel that it is true of all cities, or else, true of none. A musing that came to me while reading on the train today:

To understand cities is to understand the birth and death of spaces; to understand spaces is to understand the boundaries of a life; to understand boundaries is to speak a language; and to speak a language is to understand people at least as well as anyone can.

If you've been keeping score from home, you know that lately I've been faced with the prospect of possibly leaving this city for the person I care for... (flashback: "what's more, I miss the one I care for more than I miss New Orleans") Calvino's cities are portable, and thus One City.

So too, I'm beginning to realize, is mine.