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Where Did Lolita Go?
A long time ago, Voodoo Boy sent me this poem:
Euterpelolita
I used to think she was innocent,
childlike, wispy and naive, with irridescent
wings and eyes, her limbs like willow
branches, everything about her fifteen
years, and slight.But now, I haven't even read Nabokov,
and I know fifteen is not innocent.
"Sirens bear the breasts of maids"
is what I had forgotten. I remember
now.She matured with me, though. Now her
curves are full, her lips still pout,
and as she bends across my desk and spreads
her wings, I see they're made of sinew and silk
stained red and black.
I miss that stuff, too.
Euterpe is one of the nine muses, the "giver of pleasure," master of lyric poetry and the flute. Lolita is a character from an infamous novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
{ link me }A Perfect Day
I watched Matilda last night and it made me burst into tears. Utterly. I hate admitting that; I'm not a person who likes crying in public. Admitting it publically is only one step removed from that, you know.
It was at the end of the movie that I cried, the happily ever after part. Matilda's parents (who could never understand her) signed her adoption papers so that Miss Honey can look after her instead, and the two could finally have a loving family. There's this sunlit montage of scenes of Matilda and Miss Honey having tea parties with dolls out on the lawn and turning cartwheels, and Danny DeVito (who did the voiceover narration) says something like "and from that day on, she finally had fun."
I remember reading James and the Giant Peach in grade school, and it was like a door being opened in my head, out into the unknown. With this Roald Dahl story, it was more like another door back into something remembered. It wasn't the happy ending I cried about. There are no real happy endings in life; there's only one ending, really, and who knows what it's like? I don't say that to be morbid, and I don't see it as a negative thing-- I don't really want endings-- I want chapters to close and new ones to begin.
It was definitely the fun I was crying about. And not that my life is totally devoid of fun. It's not a depressing, meaningless hole. It's more like being stuck in the waiting room. Any waiting room. And it doesn't matter whether or not the waiting room has good magazines or people to talk to, a tv or popcorn or a pinball machine-- or whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that you're waiting for-- it's still the waiting room. It will never be as fun or interesting or fulfilling as what comes after the waiting room. So I sit and wait and fill out forms.
I remember a Labor Day weekend when I was in high school. My dad had been sober for a few years and our family was well on the way to healing itself, and we as individuals had grown a lot, too.
We packed a basket full of good food, and a kite, and softballs and mitts. The day was really pleasant for September. Usually during the late summer/ early fall in S. California, you get these Santa Ana winds, that are horribly relentless and dry and dusty. They make everything crackle with static electricity, and your mouth feels constantly gritty. That particular Labor Day wasn't like that at all-- it was clear and breezy, just bordering on hot, the sky an intense summery blue.
We drove to Arroyo Verde park in Ventura and we spread out a blanket on the grass and ate our picnic lunch. We had this traditional Mexican pico de gallo with fruit that was hot and sweet and perfect on a sunny day. We tried to fly our kite, but it wasn't quite windy enough in the protected canyon. We threw softballs and ran around on the grass. My mom and I had a race, rolling sideways down a hill, and then we watched a bunch of kids slide down the slope on blocks of ice.
Nobody argued or got crabby or shouted at bad drivers, or even stubbed a toe or broke anything and laughed it off. It wasn't a day colored more pleasant by memory, it was a truly, wonderfully good day, and at the end of the day we all thought, "this was a great day." It was about as perfect a day as can exist. Whenever I think about something pleasurable, something anticipated, something truly good and wonderful, a piece of that day exists woven into my thought.
Today, this week, lately-- for a multitude of reasons-- that day feels very far away. It appears only to be a nearly invisible wisp of thread.
Watching the end of Matilda reminded me of that day, and it made me sad that I'd let it drift so far out.
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