The Art of Living

I often wonder what impression I will leave with the people still left at the party when I'm gone. I've been known to carry my own home with me. Like unwanted souvenirs. Souvenirs I appreciate for as long as the trip home is. I've traveled away and thought about the i'm-with-stupid girl sitting in bourgeois silence next to her inebriated poli-tick-spouting boyfriend; thought about the super-natural girl who always says I'm from Canada and unwittinly bores oovy groovy holes into people's skulls with her black eyes while smiling contentedly to herself; thought about the girl who kept a close watch on the pipe often the one holding it who laughed very little but seemed happily aware of the music; thought about the picture on the wall of someone's people posing in front of a tree in front of a far away house that jiggled as the bass pounding music shook the walls. Years later I have wondered why a guy named Bill I dated used to have so many people around him and yet spoke so little to them as he passed his bong around the room. He was serious. I kept that about him. Two years ago I drove across the country with my girlfriend in my small truck. We stopped in Kansas several times. Coming from three years of living indoors in New York City we were stunned by Kansas. Kansas was beautiful and magical to us. We hung our arms out the truck windows as we zipped down highways through those wide open spaces under expansive cloud formations that flew above us like a sad child's dreamscape. The small space inside the truck was warm and messy like the inside of a camping tent, and we felt fine. We shared clove cigarettes and listened to local radio with fear and amazement. We made faces and appropriate sounds to express our surprise at each new thing. There was this two mile stretch of bizarre found-object sculpture that we stopped to snap photos and wonder about. The wind whipped at our faces and spun some of the squeeky metal sculptures around as all the grass leaned easterly. Today I find this clip that unveils the mystery of the man who made those sculptures and I'm pulled out of my bevy of party souvenirs to that carefree day to wonder who I was then. Who I was sitting next to that guy Bill I used to date and so dislike at the same time; who I was when I dreamed everything would be alright driving with my girlfriend across Kansas happy in the sun two years ago.