There’s a Stain
Dear friend,
There’s a stain on our hotel room’s
net curtains. You’d hardly notice it, but I’m sitting with nothing to do but look.
The morning breeze from the open window shifts them so that the warp and weft of their folds create interference patterns that sometimes look like the grain of pinewood.
The sunlight glints on the window frame as street sounds climb up from below. Belly voices and the occasional siren.
The ubiquitous buzz of traffic.
We’re saying goodbye to Budapest. A part of me wants to hold on to the city, the way it was over the last seven days.
The opera played to five and a half thousand people. After the shows we’d hang out in a bar at the corner of a street near our hotel, chatting with the performers and musicians and the team from the opera company.
I’m travelling light so my bag is already stuffed.
Chiara is expertly vanishing the chaos of our room into two bags. Zippers zipping. It always reminds me of camping trips.
How dreamlike, when you move around so there’s not enough time to establish a pattern for your days.
Even the teaching job. That was in the same place for decades. In the same blue carpeted studios, seems like it was dreamt, by someone, most likely me.
All of it.
We walked again on Margaret Island, and I asked Chiara if she met her twenty year old self through some bizarre fold in time, what would she want her to know.
“I don’t know” she gives it a beat, “what about you?”
“I’d tell him to enjoy himself and not be so miserable, everything works out for him. And enjoy your youth and beauty. Oh yeah and to study music and really listen to it. Pay attention to beats and bass lines and build songs around that. And work hard at what you love and don’t stop, just keep on going.”
She looks at me.
I keep on going.
“I’d tell him to watch out for a petite Italian woman cos she’ll be good for you.”
And then to myself, and I don’t know why I only let it sound inside my mind.
“And only God is real, and will find you, so just keep your mind open and don’t worry about what anybody else thinks about it. It’s alright. Some of the stuff you’re gonna go through will feel like it’s gonna kill you, but it won’t. And when it does you won’t care anyway. ”
“I’d tell her not to put her feet in so many camps, you know, just go for theatre and take it one step at a time. Work at what you love and don’t stop.” Chiara says.
It occurs to me this is for us now.
“I’d say not to worry, you don’t look like one of those princess types just enjoy the way you look” she continues.
“Would you show her a picture of me?” I say, feeling happy and giddy and vain,
“Tell her this guy will be crazy for you?”
She gives me the look and says she would.
It’s time.
There’s a taxi going to drive us and we need to pick up our bags at the hotel.
We walk past the deer and the storks and the ponies and the rose garden, catch a tram, buy some bananas and a couple of sandwiches and chat with the driver on the way to the airport.
He’s a sweet guy and very friendly and also happily trotting out right wing ideology as if we’re on the same page.
Refugees are coming to Europe from Afghanistan and Syria for economic reasons, a better life. It’s safe for women because Hungary won’t let them in.
Islamophobia too, something about streets and Muslims. Everyone is smiling because the economy is good. Well, nearly everyone. Stuff about homeless people spoiling the parks, and now they’re gone it’s better.
He’s lived in Budapest all of his life. He’s
Mixing it in with civic pride and a genuine love of his city.
I can feel myself growing cold and I don’t want to. That’s not going to help. Neither of us can think of anything to say.
You see how it works.
The stuff that’s on the radio and on the television and in the papers.
We thank him.
“Interesting to hear different perspectives” Chiara says while we’re finishing our drinking water and putting our toiletries into zip bags.
Now I’m in a tube that shakes and rattles and rolls. The scoop in the pit of the belly as we leave the ground and Hungary en route to Italy.
There’s a stain on the mind of humanity.
In groups and out groups.
Liars who may or may not believe their own propaganda.
Cold sweaty handshakes.
Good folks turning callous.
If time folded and you met your twenty year old self, what would you tell them?
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey