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My most notable flaw, as an audience(singular), is my susceptibility to a certain kind of hero(ine). I identify so aggressively with this character that their fundamentally fictional status loses any of its liberating relevance – to put it into more coherent words, the suspension of disbelief is sustained outside of the fiction and I might struggle to remove myself from his(her) trial/triumph.

Wait, I haven’t gotten much sleep… and I don’t know if I’m making much sense. How can I explain this to you? It doesn’t matter which characters I fashion to tell you a story – the words are mine and I weave them myself. In that sense, when you read a story, your interaction with the characters are really an interaction with the author. Well, that makes enough sense, doesn’t it? But that kind of thought is persistent. It persists upon me at any rate…

Sleep has been tough these past few days. Partly because my work on Bijoux Red, and on Galaxy Parade, is going very smoothly right now. When things go this smoothly, I start to lose my grip on reality. Really, I become far too excited about my work to think rationally about anything else. Sleep is out of the question.

The other reason is that I just finished reading Sputnik Sweetheart, by Murakami, a few nights ago and the characters have persisted upon me for the past few nights… “it’s as if the whole world was made for our loneliness.” Or something like that. Last night, while sitting, sharing tea with that thought ‘loneliness’, I became frustratingly restless… so I threw on a movie that German has been asking me to watch for the past ……. couple of years? The movie is called ‘Mind Game’. With that kind of name, it’s no stretch of the imagination to figure the kind of impression that left on me – me in my wavering, fragile state.

Well, I’m hoping this doesn’t sound like I’m complaining, or whining, or unloading. I’m really just telling you a story. Can we take that at face value? Okay! I’ll take it from here…

Today it rained. The wind was strong and it rained. After getting off of work, I passed by the HMV in Square One and was pulled in by a ‘SALE’ sign. I’m not cheap… I’m just broke. But that’s not the point of this story. Encouraged by my find (a DVD of the movie Fargo, which I recently fell in love with), I decided I should stick around for a bit, wander the aisles, maybe look for something worth listening to, something to ease my heavy heart, heavy with absence – Re: Loneliness…

It never occurred to me that HMV would have a ‘classical’ section. But of course it would, right? It’s not like I would deny it if somebody told me so. It just never occurred to me, that’s all. ‘Classical’ is a broad, misused and abused term, so I usually keep well away from anything making that kind of bald-faced declaration like ‘Classical Music’… Well, I came up a failure over and over again; like stepping into a casino, finding Fargo on sale was like my ‘beginner’s luck’, something to get me in there and thinking about spending money.

I’m not gonna tell you about how amazing it was to come across what I found next though, cause it’s really not like winning the jackpot at a slots game in the casino. No, in that sense the analogy doesn’t hold up very well. Or maybe it does, if you consider that I may have walked out of the casino modestly richer than I was when I came in. However you cut it though, what I found in the classical section, one lined up after the other, was a recording of Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony (my absolute favourite symphony after Schubert’s eighth), and a collection of Felix Mendelssohn’s more memorable pieces (Hebrides Overture anyone?). It might seem terribly boring to find these recordings, even to a fellow enthusiast for late-romantic era composers, but let me tell you. I spend a lot of time looking up these kinds of performances on Youtube, and I never really figured out (somehow) that these recordings were out there somewhere to be bought! So when I saw these two CDs, vessels to the sounds near and dear to me, it felt like a strange sort of encouragement from within/without – a sign from the universe! As if God himself was watching and saying to me, ‘Keep going! You’re doing just fine!’ (What’s more, they were both on sale!)

With a surge going from my hands to my heart, I exchanged money for music with an underpaid man in a navy blue t-shirt.

On my way home, the wind was blowing fierce from all sides – the rain itself had no clue where it was coming from or where it would land, and my umbrella was flailing outward in every which way! Subject to the ridiculous temperament of indifferent weather, I could hear the sounds in my head – the opening melody of the Hebrides Overture. My stride was so fierce and forward that I could swear I saw my shadow, more than once, running to keep up with me against a bustling army of gales! In this universe, the one within, the one without, we’re not alone.

I’m sitting here typing, listening to Mahler’s fifth. The loneliness, the absence, the book, the movie, the unappreciative winds and the endless sky all add up to this moment. It’s not really amazing, I’ll admit. I just felt like sharing a story, that’s all.

At the store, we’re getting our regular hours back in November, and then some – likely because the shopping season is marching forward in full armament. “I’m ready to fight! Give it your best shot!” It’s going to be a battlefield, but at least I won’t feel so broke. This will go a long way towards completing ‘that project’ too. Bijoux Red and Galaxy Parade couldn’t be going better. My hands are full, and I wish I could say the same for my heart. Alongside the aforementioned suspension of disbelief, loneliness is a persistent fellow too. But I love my work and I love to work, so that’s a pretty good setup right there. Well, we can’t have it all, right? Not yet, anyway. I should finish what’s on my plate first… let’s not get greedy now! This is a hefty goal we’re working toward.

Alright! We can do it! Keep going! You’re doing fine! The universe is on my side, after all.

R