What happened in the last few days is quite astounding. I feel almost as if my brain went a little blind. Yes, this sounds very dramatic and maybe overly dramatic, but I do not know how to better describe this very odd state of mind. I am still myself, the world around me is still the same, I have not moved away from New York, I have the opportunity to work on a very extraordinary project. All seems like the perfect ground for fresh observations and fragments and opinions. Yet they do not seem to be there. I would like to write something, and yet there is nothing really to write home about, or there is and I just can not put it into words. Such a strange situation for me. It could have something to do with the cold I had? Very strange. It was a good day, but I seem to barely remember anything. Very strange. Hmm, thinking about the subway ride this morning...
There was a with his maybe 4 year old daughter on the train today. He seemed like a serious older executive now temporarily dressed up in a “relaxed” hunting outfit. She was this little red haired princess in a long, rich navy cashmere coat, white stockings and these shiny lacquered shoes that looked exactly like the ones Alice wore in Wonderland, at least as depicted in the illustrations by John Tenniel. Her eyes were opened into this blank stare at the advertising on the other side of the subway car. Her was preparing her for a party they were probably about to attend. He was telling her about a hotel, and that there would be other people. And that it would be exactly like the wedding of so and so, or the other celebration there and there. The girl never turned her head. She looked a bit like a biscuit porcelain doll with immobile eyes. Her just kept whispering something again and again, bring up names and locations and events. He was seemingly trying to program an entire family tree into her. She just stared. She then asked about Santa, and if he would be late this year. The gave some really silly reply, decorating it with more names of aunts and uncles.
A mother with her daughter came into the train on 59th street. She was of Native american descent, or at least looked like the cliche picture of a native american woman. The only thing missing seemed some native decorations in the girls hair. She turned around however and there they were, in one strand of her long black hair, beads and corals in a very interesting little composition. The woman sat down and without a word the girl sat down on her lap.
It was a bit of an interesting composition in the car now. On one side was the whispering with his staring, dressed up daughter, on the other side was this mother, with her daughter on her lap. The mother did not say a single word. The daughter pulled out a loop of string out of her pocket and began to make shapes. No word was spoken on one side, a brook of anglo saxon names was flowing on the other.
I had to leave the train, just in the moment when the girl with the loop of string managed to make a shape that reminded me of the games with the loop of string as we used to play them on summer afternoons, behind the house in Poland.
I wish I knew how to describe it all.