Inspiration
“Every artist knows,” says the man on stage, “that the most dangerous time to create is when you’re doubting yourself.” He is singer and pianist, Andrew McMahon. “Trust me, you doubt yourself a lot when you have cancer. That’s why my second album seems so disjointed. It mirrored my life. But for all the fear I had, I never lacked inspiration.” If I had cancer maybe I could compose masterpieces. I think about my mother. She spun needles and nausea and pills into grace. Now she lives every day as a gift. It sounds clichéd until you hear a survivor say it.
I have never been to Soho. The subway rattles the grate beneath my feet but I ignore the sign: HOUSTON STREET, UPTOWN THE BRONX. Tonight I’ll stroll for a bit. A homeless man brushes against me, muttering as he staggers past. I instinctively tap my back pocket; my wallet is still there. Andrew’s voice drifts back into my head. I fought a war to walk a gangplank, everything’s a piece of everyone.
Each block is peppered with moody restaurants. Some are decorated with subtly colored lights; some have exotic fish tanks at the center of the dining rooms; some have names that catch the eye: The Aquagrille, Felix, Thai Angel, Savore. Men in their mid-20’s sporting tight jeans and unkempt beards talk over a beer. “…you don’t understand my point, Stephan. Humans find beauty in all things eccentric, all things in some way removed our own lives…” Their conversation fades back into the orchestra of New York City. Andrew sings: To know the truth and still ask why, to break the bonds and raise the sky. You tear the soil from the seed, but who am I to argue fate?
The next restaurant boasts a chandelier made from wine bottles and dark granite walls and the smell of oregano. Two men in the window hold hands and lean toward each other from across the table. Light from a candle flickers over their faces. From the adjacent table, a husband and wife fire glances at them; legally, perhaps, more in love. You gotta swim, don’t let yourself sink. Just follow the horizon, it’s not as far as you think.
Having seen my fill, I finally board the subway home. I sit between an elderly Jewish man and a black youth. The Jewish man reads the international section of the newspaper. The headline is something about Syrian rebels, but it’s the graphic picture that catches my eye. Two men drag a third across the street, his shirt soaked in blood. The boy to my right wears a long sleeve polo shirt, one cuff rolled to his elbow, exposing a new forearm tattoo that still glistens from the protective Vaseline. I wonder what his mother will think. Stop after stop the train empties until we are the only three left. Each of us, I can feel it, wants to move away, yet no one does. We sit uncomfortably close in the ghostly car, united by nothing but the swaying of the subway. I’m finally numb so please don’t get me rescued.
As I exit the subway I think about Jess. I wonder how her new boyfriend is. He’s probably an asshole. My fingers brush the phone in my pocket and I’m tempted to call her, but I have to honor the ceasefire to which we both agreed. It’s funny how the words we never say can turn into the only thoughts we know.
As I get in bed I notice the string tied around my wrist. Once, during the last hour of August, it represented a bond between my friends and me. I see the best of those friends chanting, “life is but the movement of limbs,” as he stumbles from the campfire into the darkness like a blind man. The end of the string is frayed, each strand begging to become its own entity, each strand begging to be given life, each strand begging to be pulled. I see a homeless man, a cancer patient, a group of hipsters, a campsite littered with beer cans, a gay couple, a teenager being yelled at by his mother. I twist the strands loosely back together and lay my head down. I close my eyes.
Inspiration. To the sleepless this is my reply, I’ll write you a lullaby.
