Daily Mantras and Such

"......What peaches and what penumbras! Whole familiesshopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in theavocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, whatwere you doing down by the watermelons?......"


Weekday story:
Too many shoes lying around in my pigeon hole room, mugs containing yesterday’s remaining tea. Stale bread slices. Too many wires/cables running along from peepholes and corners, webcams, microphones, headphones what have you cabled to my laptop. In the dark gape under the bed, stock of toilet papers, bounty tissues, and lamp bulbs. In neglected corners, make-ups, toiletries, body splashes lined in a row, books racked and stacked. Oh and hair accessories, umm too many. My study table, scarps, folders, coffee stains, stains, residue of strains, books, book marks, pizza box, pizza slice..
I move and continue to function through the chaos, the filth, my random mess, your trifle mess, that riddled mess, haphazard zigzagged uncertainties…

Over the weekend:

the floor is squeaky clean, vacuumed; the bathtub, snow white; on the mirrors, my face too lucid, too apprehensible to settle and like; no soiled laundry tumbling out of wash-baskets; clean sheets, ironed covers, bright pillow cases, smelling the way the sun would if it were a lemon without losing its warmth. Freshly cooked food zip-locked and refrigerated for the following week. Order, Symmetry, Geometry, Straight lines, Rearrangement, Black & White…looming insanity.

Then again, I get so tired of living in this bell jar overlooking this psychotic city, that I at times in the middle of it all, take a walk. It drains me dry sometimes. I try to take in the details, the daily adornments, the love stories written and not written in the mundane…

Oi “Aicha, Aicha” what do you see?

Plenty of faces staring back at me…

A poncho clad evening…cloudy, chilly, dark all around yet crisp and clear when you look ahead.
A Puerto-Rican man tosses colorful leaflets like confetti. I frisk slightly in a tiptoe, to catch one: “Horoscope Reading by Sarah Ashley. An advisor known for her Honesty and Integrity. She can help you with any and all of life’s problems and will suggest which reading best helps you. Spiritual Psychics. Tarot Card Readings. Crystal Rock Reading. Tea leaf and Crystal Ball Reading. AVAILABLE FOR PARTIES. $15 Complete Life Reading with this coupon for only $5. Ph#/Address...”

I contemplate calling Ms. Sarah Ashley and making an appointment. This coupon will buy me a complete life reading for $5. And perhaps with another $5 she can, like she promised; solve my life’s “any and all” problems. Ashley’s leaflet caught while floating down from the sky. Talk about signs…I save that thought for the weekend and move on…
A peacock blue haze from the sky casts on the dust freckled, stone graveled road, a multi-color oil slick from some careless zoomed past car slithers down, wobbly, emulating the peacock blue tinge.

A beautiful woman walks a beautiful dog. Both of them grand, monumental, walking straight and high, no melting , bending or sticking out. A little girl in a yellow sweater yells out, “Ma, that doggy eat me!” The dog instead passes by her in majesty. The little girl frowns, stamps and decides to chase the doggy, her toying terror.

I slide in through the super market door; the automatic doors rush open as if awaiting me. The central AC gush an abundance of indifferent, teeth-chattering air that lands on my face like a hard punch. I scurry along the aisles, cold: Cereal-commercial-families on the cereal aisle, gently pushing their trolleys along with their pretty children. Men, women, queers, queens, children, laughter, cackle.
Buying in frenzy: credit debit flowing, swiping click clack, rummaging for cash, digging for cents, this, that, those, looking for that refuge, that need, that feeling of good. I hurry to ‘my’ aisle, get my cheesecake and wait at one of the sections that say in large print “Cash Only”. By this time I am seeing double. I see “cash only” every where I look. It takes extra long for the girl to tap at the cash register with her extra long, manicured, painted nails, with stars and gems glued on them.
Meantime, I try to ingrain fractured images upon my memory: Pretty girl, gemmed nails, Super-Market ID card, logo imprint apron, Irish accent, bleached smile, register tilt, “cash only” signs, spree, binge, cheesecake, cold, refuge, doggy, terror, your life readings for $5, fortune-telling available for parties, survival, purple-blue haze, the lingering trailing tang of chicken broccoli, road side Chinese take out, angels, Song Liling……somehow, along came Bruce-lee and lanky boys kicking and punching under florescent lights….

I oblige and pay in cash only…

I come back home take out a plate from the pantry with stars and gems on it. I procrastinate eating a slice from that cake.
I Walk by it, walk past it, walk around it, stare at it, mull over it, while it lies right there. I decide to wait for my right moment…..