I took a few days to process the rollercoaster of post-show emotions. I’m in Oklahoma now, at my aunt’s, and my body is saying “REST. FOR ONE DAY. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.”
On my last day I decided to fulfill my forgotten promise to Laura and visit The Bean. It ended up better timing for a number of reasons. It was 6am on a cloudy Sunday, about as empty as such a place can get. The weather matched the formal name, “cloudgate”, and at times I found myself more entranced by the skyscrapers disappearing into the reduced render distance.
There was something extra potent, narratively, about looking into this warped mirror as the capstone to this trip. I often come back to the metaphor of the house of mirrors when it comes to navigating delusion. A haunted house perhaps – the echo of a blistering irony: “feelings don’t care about your facts.”
Yet – the reflection I saw was not of a mangled monster like I feared. The warping was actually flattering, in a way – a down angle that minimized everything below my chest. Looking at myself, I decided, this lady doesn’t have a bad face. If she was thinner, it might be called pretty. At the very least, she has a nice smile – she looks like a very cozy, teddy bear sort of person. If there were any ghosts lurking behind that warped mirror, maybe they would think the same.
My other stop was to a little local park I had run across earlier in the week. That first time, I was looking for somewhere near my hotel to picnic with my panda express, and picked it because it had fox in the name. When I pulled up, I was decked by dream dejavu – this fountain, the way the houses surround it, the location of the play area, where I’m standing…it was from one of my most vivid dreams. From months ago. And……for what? Again to the universe I say, for. Fucking. What.
As I ate my panda express, I was watching Jerma stream Tomodachi Life. After he made an eldritch horror version of the cookie monster, a wishing fountain was built on his island. I squinted accusatorily at the fountain in the pond in front of me. My fortune cookie note: “LOSE THE SMALL ONES, BUT WIN THE BIG ONES”.
My second visit was an effort to give meaning to all this, I suppose. It was around 5:30am, just before sunrise. I brought a dandelion from the hotel. The fountain wasn’t on, but I thought, “a fountain is still a fountain when it’s not fountaining.” I tried to position myself so the seeds would blow towards the water, but the wind wasn’t having it. The seeds belong in the grass, to be fair, even if it not as cool visually. As if in response to that, as I finished blowing, an eiry mist started rushing towards me along the surface of the water. It was thin, and at a distance it was hard to tell if what I was seeing was above or below the water. It had a river of souls sort of look, but more spiritual than spooky. Though I had not seen such a thing before, I assumed it must be a morning condensation situation. Maybe something to do with the changing temperature of the air and water. Experientially, though, it definitely felt like god turned on the fog machine at the most dramatic moment.
Because my sleep schedule is perma-fucked, I left at around 2am. As I was driving through town to the Aurora supercharger, I got these almost like…you know when the credits roll in a movie, and they have little inset flashbacks or something? I saw a limo, randomly, driving slowly up a neighborhood street past me. I had a mini heart attack when I saw intense strobing off to one side, the lights in an office building going completely berserk. I’m unmoured at this point from how coincidences like this come across. To me they seem crazy, but maybe my narrative-making overlay is more obvious and annoying to others.
There was certainly a full circle feeling to everything. Best not to overthink it at this stage, though. Processing takes some distance. That space can only come when you finally, truly, let go.
>>robyns_ramblings 