-Here's an unfinished entry from exactly seven months ago that I half- wrote and then forgot about until today. Since Lady D and Mara-Arya are meeting each other for the first time tonight, I thought I'd splatter some memories from the first day I "met" Mara-arya.....sorry it's unfinished and wordy (when they do our blogging troika "blography" I pinkie-swear I'll have the entry buffed to perfection)....
Have a wonderful weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
***
At the end of the day there were finally feathers. I'd been looking for feathers all day. Looking for feathers all my life it seemed--as I stumbled out at bed at three a.m. that morning and arrived at the bus station. Looking for feathers when I arrived at Midway four hours later and shuffled my thoughts past the baggage carousel to the Orange line. Looking for feathers as I zipped into the hard vertical rectangular shape of the city, flanked by fellow commuters toating briefcases with blank- copier paper expressions plastered on their morning faces. Looking for feathers as I scrambled off the Orange line and arrived at the Library stop. Looking for feathers as I strutted my dreams beneath the thick shadowy film blanketing the lively morning bustle of Chicago traffic in a thick silhouette veil. Looking for feathers as I entered a Starbucks (no feather), poured copious amounts of caffeine down the oral chute, ruffled the Sport section of the Trib and inwardly bitched over another inexplicable Cubs lost! ( How come they always need wings in September to float into the post season?)
I ambled down Adams, early September, looking for feathers, arriving at the Steps of the Art Institute at 9:30 still trying to rouse my way into consciousness. The gray, damp used-tea-bag flavored clouds had gradually begun to drift, revealing a golden pond of sleek autumnal sky perfectly placed above my forehead like a halo. A group of Senior Citizens, some with cardboard faces and bolled cotton hairstyles, had begun to form a line outside the Art Institute in the crooked shape of a Question mark. I sip my coffee, anxiously strutting between the two Chrome Lions that guard the entrance of the building like sentinels, waiting for my freind to arrive.
My friend Arya uses feathers in her lectures. When I trek around my hometown of Peoria and see an errant feather bristling across a spare patch of earth, I sometimes think of her. I seem to somehow have this weird correlation towards strewn objects. I think of Uncle Mike when I see loose change scattered on the sidewalk like petrified confetti. I think of my Dad when I see surrendered ponytail holders lying listlessly on the ground. It seems like certain abandoned articles connote a deeper, almost mystical significance.
"It's spiritual litter," I tell my friend, later in the day, tossing out the dregs of a cigarette.
"I have this problem with littering," She'll tell me later, picking up the pinched filter and depositing the butt into an empty coffee cup.
*
Wearing my favorite pin stripe blue blazor that once belonged to my father, I squatted on the cement lips leading up to the Art Institute and waited, my elbows resting on my thighs for support. There was no feathers visible. There were only crones hackeling stale rhetoric behind me and the thick stream whorl of traffic blurring my vision. Each vehicle ferrying different lives, different stories; each vehicle dashing off to a different port, a different destination.
Each car flying down Michigan avenue without the assitance of wings.
Forgoing the quest for feathers while waiting for my friend, I begin to see myself. There was a young artist with a thick-leashed brown ponytail sipping his coffee next to one of the Lions. There was an old man dressed in a derby cap and wry smile, heavily puffing on a cigar. There was the man in the bussiness shirt and even shorter haircut, sitting on the same ledge of stairs where I sat, in the same posture that I was seated. His bussiness pants were the same exact pattern as my father's coat. We exchanged glances several times and volleyed coy remarks. It was as if we were both waiting for the same person to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, a female arrived and squatted next to him and kissed him. He looked at me as if he had just won something we were both competeing for before escorting his prize into the annexed mouth of the building.
I still waited void of feathers. I have seen my friend only once and was afraid that i might not recognize her. "Of course I would!" I thought. "How could I not? We're 'blogging-buddies.' We know everything about each other. It's like we're inside each other's body and thoughts every day, only instead of cells and blood vessels, everything is composed and connected with words and images and something called 'Mara.'"
Arya has long black hair (nostalgia button). A woman walks up next to me with long black hair and an upside down boomerang smile. She has a sheet of black hair that sway's like how I imagine Arya's hair would sway, but she also has a huge ass. Huge ass. It's ten-thrity and I'm starting to worry and I hate staring at the fat ass because I think she feels that I'm checking her out. She inches closer. "Arya?" I think to myself. The closer I inch the weirder I feel. I approach her and her face swivels the opposite direction. No. Thank God. Definetly not the soul I'm waiting for.
"Perhaps Arya won't come." I think to myself. Outside of blogger our g-mails are quick raindrops of exchanged rhetoric. Perhaps she came and I missed her. Perhaps she's busy. Perhaps she forgot. I envision taking the early bus home and finding a wicked e-mail stashed in the empty space of my g-mail: "This is what happens when you chase your Mara." It would say. "You wind-up feeling completely empty on the inside and utterly alone on the out."
*
But, no. She shows up! Fashionably stepping out of the wing of a taxi in stylish four-inch heels as if chicly jutting out from the side of a limousine. I recognize her immediately. I recognize her hair and her forehead and her cheekbones. She's dressed like a rockstar on the way to a fashion show. Black top, cool jeans with a swirled dragon embroidered on the thigh, earrings the size of planetary loops, sunglasses. Streaks of blonde shoot her through black hair. For a moment I think about nonchalantly milling around the front steps and waiting for her to notice and approach me. But I can't. Next thing I realize is that I'm in front of her. Helping her assemble her child's stroller.
"Been a long time my friend!" I think I said first, or maybe I said "'Bout time your wayfarer ass showed up!" or maybe I said something else. I can't remember verbatim what my first non-typed out words to Arya were, but I remember watching her smile and apologize inceassantly for being late before we quickly hugged and then tucked her six-month old daughter into the pouch of the stroller, entering the Art Institute via the side ramp. The weather is now completely golden and a feeling of pending seasonal transition lingers heavenly in the air. I still have yet to spot a feather, but I have finally found an angel of a friend pushing her newbron child by my side. Entering the building I feel very happy.
*
"I was thinking that maybe we both should've brought our laptops so that way we could blogg our conversations out to each other so we'd be more comfortable. People would think that we were playing battleship or something."
She laughs. We enter the building. Typical of spiritual siblings who can't take a compliment from each other "Mara-Arya" and "Captain Universe" are bickering within the first five minutes. They are in front of the cash register. Captain Universe insists on paying, handing the cashier a wad of bills. Mara-Arya jostles her elbows and guts Captain Universe in the stomach.
"No way." Mara-Arya says.
"My friend, my pleasure. Put your money away." I halt out my arm over her limbs. She has a credit card thrust into the cashier's face.
"Put your money away." I tell her. "It's on me."
"No," She says. She's much more adamant in person than she is in her blogg. It's almost like we're jockeying for position at the start of a race. The cashier has my wad of bills in his hand and then Arya literally reaches her hand across the counter and forcefully removes the bills from his grasp shoving her plastic card into his face.
"This ones on me." she says, smiling handing me the crumpled bills and the next thing I know we're inside the museum next to each other not knowing exactly what to say.
*
Arya's noticeably nervous. I'm cracking too many witticims and lame jokes hoping that our social icebreakers will melt and cool off the initial nerves. I'm whording the conversation. Arya's voice is benevolent and chimes. I like the way her voice sounds in person. I'm talking about myself too much. We're looking at art. Gazing at Matisse and Braque and Picasso. We both say the word "Titian" at the same time and smile and look at each other. It's old lady day at the museum and all these crones are stationed like Mannequins in front of timeless works of antiquity. We keep getting 'stuck' in front of these crones who won't shut up talking about neo-classicism. Periodically Arya scoops up her six-month old, a fragrant rose bud named Jada May and coddles her, leaving me to push the plastic stroller.
"I've never done this." I tell her.
"Nothing like bring your newbron up on Boucher."
**************
End of story--when I arrived back at Midway there were feathers everywhere. It looked like an angel sorority had just had a pillow fight. So many feathers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*****
I made a big nest of feathers and planted the gift my friend gave me in the center so that it looked like an egg
I've been seeing feathers for weeks. Long, narrow swift-shaped plumes flopped in front of my tattered Doc Martens as I would trek to and from classes--as I exhaustively