listening to
"when the parish school dismisses and the children running sing" reminds me of St John's school where
Rushmore, my favorite
movie, was filmed, and requires me to vent the
emotion it causes to surface in a letter to the
place I love so well.
let's start with St Johns. it stands like good poetry in the middle of the uptown area, lots of trees and grade school children in knee socks make it a spot for music and love for everything to grow. the understaff in red aprons with masks that hide their own boredom with life, and the upperstaff in clergy clothing or business appropriate attire, thus annunciating their boredom with the understaff. education, so important but so painful once you leave elementary levels...can cause words to swim and numbers to bounce about the page if you can't type and are cursed with mild dislexia, like certain souls...
so there's this sculpture garden in the very heart of the museum district. my friend pants and i walked aimlessly down the road for a while until we got there on one bright and windy day. found a wall of concrete, found a way to get to the top of it and lay there for the better part of an hour or two, admiring the adjacent parking lot and imaculately endowed cathedral across the way. watched people come and go, in their cars (obnoxious things), or on foot, and the security guard who was obviously not doing his job to the best of his ability, who paced and paced as if he knew he would get there one day...it was chilly due to the wind, but the sun was out and the dirty and unseen death in the air kept us warm and happy, pointing out ironic things, like our being and even our friendship...
speaking of work...we work in the same place, at Whole Foods Market in the fake upper kirby district of houston...a wonderful place, organic produce and bulk goods never looked better. a customer once left a long comment card, a wonderful story he or she retold, and i will end this pontification with that lovely little story, retold once more. at the now non-existant shepard location of WFM, they were checking out on one same old same afternoon, and over the satellite transmitted speaker system some old bealtes song came floating. slowly, one by one, people on the front end began humming and then singing out loud, and soon all the cashiers and their customers were singing aloud along with the Walrus...what a wonderful and magical memory.
thank you, thank you all.