Talk About The Passion

After a Monday night pilgrimage for beer and tots, a few of us wound up at Gorgeous' place to help her get rid of the liquor in her cabinet. I'm always happy to help out a friend. Apparently the mixture of many stouts, cajunized tots, vermouth, gin and little green olives makes me want to tell some stories.

I can get all talky on your ass sometimes. I'm frankly surprised that more people don't tell me to shut the hell up. I was reminded today that I had told Brandon quite a lot about my Sedona trip so many years ago. And I remember quite clearly rambling on in the entryway while I drunkenly put my shoes back on about Van Gogh and Picasso and blindness.

See, we were looking at the Rothko-esque painting that Nikki 2 K's had made for Gorgeous and the space she had chosen to hang it up in. I remember when he first unveiled it for her and looking at it propped up against an crumbling, industrial, concrete building smack in the middle of a neighborhood smack in the middle of being forgotten and being rebuilt, our bellies full of beer and German food. Viewing the painting again, I was taken by the brush strokes and reminded of seeing those soul crushing Van Gogh's up close, and how you could see the frenzy and thickness of paint being used to produce a scene that needed to be recorded right then and there; you could see brilliant madness in those brushstrokes.

I remembered and told the scene of Greta May and myself deep in the Impressionists at the Guggenheim, the eve before a life changing trip to Europe. Chris and Bif were on their own somewhere, but Miss May and I were standing breathless in front of the Van Gogh's, he was a common ground that we collided over when we first met.

As we stood there, trying to take it all in, a blind man was led to a painting by his companion. The companion then did his best to describe the paintings to his blind friend.

I was already in an emotional state, but this made me openly weep. How do you even begin trying to explain Picasso to someone who cannot see it? And the need to have it told, the desire to do so... It not only drove it home again just how lucky I am, but it made me realize that it is my duty to look when there are others cannot, my duty to listen when others cannot, my duty to live and dive into the sheer ecstasy of living.

It was raining when I left Gorgeous' place, much as it had been raining when we left the Guggenheim. While we had run down the streets of New York as a fulfilled and playful foursome, I walked the streets of Seattle by myself, more than slightly drunk, but smiling at the wonder of it all.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "Perfect Circle" by R.E.M.