hold tight
our love will fade out
it's writing its name in the sky
and I'll stop and stare
I saw this movie about a man that went somewhere else. He was an FBI agent, I think, but that statement is based solely on the fact that he was sent Somewhere Else and who else goes there but FBI agents. But he was sent to Alaska to investigate a murder. Before he left someone in his office was telling him how weird it is up there, how the weather and the eternal sunshine do bizarre things to your brain. He nodded politely.
When he arrived at the airport in this teeny Alaskan town he was met by a local law enforcement officer who explained to him the details of the case and that the person to question was a seventeen-year-old boy. He said Well let's go get him. She said Sir? He said Let's go to the school; pick him up, pick his brain. She and the other local officer looked at each other, looked at him. He said What? She said It's just that, well, it's midnight, sir. He looked at her, looked up and squinted into the sun, looked at the trees and buildings, looked back into the sun, looked down at his feet.
It is a cruel trick to play on ourselves to think that we know what we're doing. To think that just because everything is in place, everything is lined up, everything is exactly as it should be, that we can make assumptions about anything at all. You can't even make assumptions about the sun. It's hard for me to accept that all of the elements can be present, and that I can do everything right and do my best and make sure I pack everything I need and go to the bathroom before I leave and turn the lights off behind me and make sure I clean the peanut butter off before I put the knife in the jelly and walk up to it ready, prepared and inconquerable, only to have my legs taken out by the realization that I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing there, because obviously I have misread or misjudged or misinterpreted something fundamental along the way that renders all of this, all of it, wasted. To stand in a hostile landscape and marvel at its beauty rather than its inhospitable nature, and to worship the landscape for all its majesty and terror, and to have the sound of the ice creaking worm its way into my skull until it drives me mad. To be so, so completely adrift that I can stare at the sun and not even know what it means. I am standing in the full light of the sun, and I have a job to do and we are doing it together, but because it is in fact the middle of the night you are fast asleep. You are fast asleep, and you don't even know I'm outside.
it's writing its name in the sky
and I'll stop and stare
I saw this movie about a man that went somewhere else. He was an FBI agent, I think, but that statement is based solely on the fact that he was sent Somewhere Else and who else goes there but FBI agents. But he was sent to Alaska to investigate a murder. Before he left someone in his office was telling him how weird it is up there, how the weather and the eternal sunshine do bizarre things to your brain. He nodded politely.
When he arrived at the airport in this teeny Alaskan town he was met by a local law enforcement officer who explained to him the details of the case and that the person to question was a seventeen-year-old boy. He said Well let's go get him. She said Sir? He said Let's go to the school; pick him up, pick his brain. She and the other local officer looked at each other, looked at him. He said What? She said It's just that, well, it's midnight, sir. He looked at her, looked up and squinted into the sun, looked at the trees and buildings, looked back into the sun, looked down at his feet.
It is a cruel trick to play on ourselves to think that we know what we're doing. To think that just because everything is in place, everything is lined up, everything is exactly as it should be, that we can make assumptions about anything at all. You can't even make assumptions about the sun. It's hard for me to accept that all of the elements can be present, and that I can do everything right and do my best and make sure I pack everything I need and go to the bathroom before I leave and turn the lights off behind me and make sure I clean the peanut butter off before I put the knife in the jelly and walk up to it ready, prepared and inconquerable, only to have my legs taken out by the realization that I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing there, because obviously I have misread or misjudged or misinterpreted something fundamental along the way that renders all of this, all of it, wasted. To stand in a hostile landscape and marvel at its beauty rather than its inhospitable nature, and to worship the landscape for all its majesty and terror, and to have the sound of the ice creaking worm its way into my skull until it drives me mad. To be so, so completely adrift that I can stare at the sun and not even know what it means. I am standing in the full light of the sun, and I have a job to do and we are doing it together, but because it is in fact the middle of the night you are fast asleep. You are fast asleep, and you don't even know I'm outside.
posted by machine central at 11:24 AM
2 comments
