Blogging Up A Lung

‘Desmond takes a trolley to the jewelers’ stores,

Buys a 20-carat golden ring,

Takes it back to Molly waiting at the door,

And as he gives it to her she begins to sing:

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da,

Life goes, brah!

La-la how the life goes on;

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da,

Life goes on, brah!

La-la how the life goes on.’

~~ The Beatles

A tainted memory:

It’s a birthday party for two.

Not that it’s her birthday.

Not that it matters.

We are young. We are foolish.

We are desperately in love.

I have tried to make everything right: cupcakes with candles; expensive caramels; balloons; birthday napkins and plates; shots of rum; a small gift; a ‘Happy Birthday’ banner strung across the ceiling, each letter a neon burden to the eyes, the letters book-ended by cardboard candles.

But the finishing touch; the last modest, magnificent stroke of pastel; the keystone that binds tight this perilous construction, is music. Her favorite album: the White Album. Playing slightly out of sequence because naturally ‘Birthday’ must be played first, greeting her as she enters, making the surprise a surreal and sensual assault.

The colors! The tastes! The sounds! The smells!

… and oh, those touches. Soft caress, kiss of gratitude, hint of tongue.

She blows out the candles and we devour our cupcakes. They are too sugar-sweet, but what does it matter? The rum is too strong to drink by itself, so we leave it. We are drunk without drinking. The liver is spared. But the head, la cabeza, is intoxicated from within. The levees have broken, the hormones flood in. A hurricane of passion.

A circus of silliness! Dazzling, dizzying, death-defying dare-devils!

And then: the clarion call for the clowns. Crystal-clear chords, struck on the rasping strings of a ragtime piano. The bass, almost by accident, arrives with a bouncing rhythm.

This may be my favorite Beatles' song.

My eyes and ears are melting. Sensory overload. Which is more beautiful – the music or the girl? I am torn. She laughs and grabs my hands and the strain is relieved. There is no choice between music and woman now: I am immersed in both.

‘Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,
Life goes on, brah!’

We dance. Not like a club, not like a ballroom, not like a concert. Not in any sane or usual way at all. Just holding hands, and swinging in crazy circles around the room, singing and laughing, her laughter as heavenly and bright as the Beatles’ music.

This is perhaps my happiest moment. An image so utterly clear, a moment so perfect the weight of it compresses the chest, even now, to think of it. This is the type of image film directors spend their lives trying to capture, driving themselves mad in their failure. Her body, clad in velvet-soft pajamas. Her face, so sweet, so clear, the room behind her a frenzied blur. We spin, laugh, dance, sing.

This is life. Oh, how it goes on.

Music, relationships, lives.
These, our hallucinations,
Inspired and induced
By experience, connection and passion.
They are wisps of smoke,
Created and dissipated
By the mouths and the hearts that form them.

This is my memory, kept deeply buried, personal, private. My happy place, visited in moments of despair.

Bled now like pus from a wound.

Let the healing begin.

Peace and love,

Sketch E.