remembering
I spent a good weekend with miss s., as we had not seen each other in many years. It's so strange how so much time outside of the country seems to be as if no time had passed at all; was it all a dream? I still miss my Berlin friends a great deal, and photographs and e-mails are nothing compared to real-life conversations and hand-holding. Miss S. had been a series of e-mails and chats over the years, and it was so gratifying to see her in person again as she stayed at my house.
We ran around the city like little children, stuffing our faces at the Thai Temple with m. and feeling like we were in another country, and then lazing around in the Museum of Jurassic Technology to escape the intense summer heat. We were there for hours and hours. It's a place to get lost in, one of the true jewels of Los Angeles, full of renaissance theater dioramas and an exhibit dedicated to the mobile home of America. Yet another example of the L.A. David Lynch world.
We walked the long strip of boardwalk between Santa Monica and Venice Beach. It was at this point that we started talking about a common acquaintance, and she was shocked when I told her that he had passed away. It had been a tragic situation as well. Young men of our generation should not be going so quickly like this; I remember him as a genuinely good person but also very brilliant and moody. He was not so much a friend of mine as he was of hers; in fact, she was intending on mailing him back some movies next week when she got to her parents' house. She didn't believe me at first.
With so many years spent apart from the ones you love, living great distances, you get worried.
You have to hold the people who are important to you close. She was very sad, and we went on the swingsets, surrounded by European tourists and people babbling so many languages at once. It wasn't so much fun... You know, there are so many interesting people on the beach. I could just sit there and watch them until the end of time, but things shut down there at sunset.
Later, our feet blistered and overwhelmed by the sun, we made our way back to the car. "I can't believe it," she said. This is something we will all have to get used to as we get older, friends passing away.
I just can't imagine what it would be like to be left entirely alone, everyone from your past gone from the earth, like those hundred year olds. What is that like? People from your youth are so important, or at least that's what I think lately, and I am fortunate that there are so many of them here in Los Angeles, because they ground me.
We ran around the city like little children, stuffing our faces at the Thai Temple with m. and feeling like we were in another country, and then lazing around in the Museum of Jurassic Technology to escape the intense summer heat. We were there for hours and hours. It's a place to get lost in, one of the true jewels of Los Angeles, full of renaissance theater dioramas and an exhibit dedicated to the mobile home of America. Yet another example of the L.A. David Lynch world.
We walked the long strip of boardwalk between Santa Monica and Venice Beach. It was at this point that we started talking about a common acquaintance, and she was shocked when I told her that he had passed away. It had been a tragic situation as well. Young men of our generation should not be going so quickly like this; I remember him as a genuinely good person but also very brilliant and moody. He was not so much a friend of mine as he was of hers; in fact, she was intending on mailing him back some movies next week when she got to her parents' house. She didn't believe me at first.
With so many years spent apart from the ones you love, living great distances, you get worried.
You have to hold the people who are important to you close. She was very sad, and we went on the swingsets, surrounded by European tourists and people babbling so many languages at once. It wasn't so much fun... You know, there are so many interesting people on the beach. I could just sit there and watch them until the end of time, but things shut down there at sunset.
Later, our feet blistered and overwhelmed by the sun, we made our way back to the car. "I can't believe it," she said. This is something we will all have to get used to as we get older, friends passing away.
I just can't imagine what it would be like to be left entirely alone, everyone from your past gone from the earth, like those hundred year olds. What is that like? People from your youth are so important, or at least that's what I think lately, and I am fortunate that there are so many of them here in Los Angeles, because they ground me.
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