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What is this all about? Maybe you should read the READ ME READ ME.
And, it was not until a couple years later when I met Andy who showed me Spaulding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia that I finally understood what had happened that day on my scooter during junior or senior year in college - - I was having a perfect moment. And it was indescribable.
I do not know what in particular brought this on, and a part of me does not believe it, while another part of me is struggling to hold on to the belief that I really, truly deserve this, but all of a sudden life is starting to feel again indescribable.
Everywhere I look are beautiful sights; everywhere I listen are beautiful sounds; so many people I meet are fascinating and beautiful and sexy and strong and funny and passionate, and I am crazy about them. And it is not that I am making a ton of money - - which I am not - - nor is it that I have begun a new relationship - - which I have not, nor do I seek to - - but rather it is this confusing and thrilling vision after blindness, and I cannot get enough of it.
I look out the window when driving and the skyscrapers sparkle and shine; I walk down Folsom in the heart of industrial SoMa/South Mission, and the Bay Bridge beams brighter than the warehouses that block it; I walk up the steps at Maggie's house and the flowers in her trees shine brilliantly and smell equally as sweet; I stand on the front porch of Omino and the houses to my left on the side of the mountain seem palpably close and exquisite; I sit in my chair in front of my computer in my living room and the sunshine through my red glass bedroom door creates glowing and changing intricate patterns on my floor. And Lauryn Hill's new album plays "Too Good To Be True," which it is.
Perhaps it was my magical trip to Las Vegas, or even before that, watching Ruby in Paradise and episode after episode of My So-Called Life, or finally getting a good bandwidth solution, or signing up with
DirecTV and snagging a free month of about 300 movie channels, when all of a sudden my senses started exploding with input that resonated.
From the ending of the self-esteem episode of MSCL, where Angela looks at the humans who comprise her world and realizes that "people are so funny and silly and imperfect and hopeful that they are all beautiful, perhaps even me," to the scene in Everyone Says I Love You where the narrator's grandfather lifts himself from his casket to sing and dance "Enjoy yourself; it's later than you think," to the sappy romantic confessional love scenes in Chasing Amy and "Fools Rush In" where star-crossed lovers realize that they found everything that they never knew that they always wanted, I have fallen back in love with the medium that comprises a part of the industry that, unbelievably, makes up my career.
And when I was driving my parents' white car home from my Grandmother Charlotte's apartment down Lake Drive alongside the shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee last month, and Liz Phair's then still unreleased single, "Love Is Nothing," came on the radio, it felt like that day on the scooter. It keeps striking me unannounced; I am on the roof of the Industry Standard, or I am walking down 16th Street, or I am cutting across the dusty desert and I cannot contain it; I twirl and twirl and people stare in confusion.
Most perfect of all, when I was standing out in the middle of the expansive dark playa, with my handsome zoot-suited laughing partner for the evening, with explosions and fireworks, red-painted men dancing, women with fairy wings, touching, and the green mountain-slicing laser, with so many things to look at and places to go, and all of them were so good and so beautiful and so perfect, it felt not like a dilemma but like what life is at its best - - an approach-approach conflict, with all options good, leading, potentially, to yet another perfect moment.
It's giddy and sappy, and perhaps won't last long, but when I called up my Grandmother Charlotte and she felt my enthusiasm, and she became so very happy, I couldn't help but believe that this has to be what living is about. And damn, I love it passionately, as giddy and sappy and short-lasted it might be.
It might be delusion, but I refuse not to enjoy it.
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Copyright 1996, 1997, 1998 Rebecca L. Eisenberg mars@bossanova.com. All rights
Reserved.
too good to be true
Grandma Charlotte Eisenberg
I have a distinct and vivid memory from my junior or senior year at Stanford, riding my white motor scooter from the math/psychology corner through the quad down the street, past sparkling Lake Lagunita into the parking lot of the suites where I lived, in the warm bright springtime sunshine, and it was beautiful and perfect and I was so happy and I was crying - - crying tears of joy for life and love for living and excitement and optimism about my thrilling future which so clearly seemed to lie before me.
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