gwensarah and johanny
Another in the December series
22:24 & 09 December 2002

A continuation of The December Series which began with 'Falling into quiet comfort'..

"There are stars..falling, shining, weaving themselves in the patterns of you.
Your moments haunt me, your words cover me, I feel you everywhere.
Just breathe
Sparking drops of water clinging to flowers beneath my window echo the thought of your eyes gazing at me with unfathomable depth.
The sensation of falling as your hand reaches out to graze my cheek, I am falling..
I am falling..light bursts into senses bursts into sighing softly, those moments just before sleep..the wind rustling my hair feels like your touch.
Lights reflecting on a lake I have seen only in my dreams, dreams coloured with longing, yearning for something which transcends waking emotions and desires.
We lie on damp grass reading Nietzsche..murmuring thoughts as if we were speaking to a mirror..there is laughter, there is sound, there is light, there is the sweet chaos of falling.
Falling.."- something I wrote ages ago

Apple Orchard..A January long ago

Lying huddled under blankets, head streaming with a cold and suddenly he burst in in a flurry of wool and dampness...
"Get up, we're leaving..we've not much time to make it there." he shouts in an almost giddy tone.
"hhmmph, cold..nobe is glooged, I'm hideous. Go away" I mumbled
and then he spoke the magic words..
"bands, Apple Orchard, trains, I've got tea right here."
So we went, me huddled in blankets even on the train, him as excited as a five year old on Christmas Day.

We had worn out a copy of the record and were rapidly wearing down a second..the song was everything pop music should be, it was glorious. And while I was too sick and sleepy at the time to fully recognise our destination or why it would spin the wheels of fate for years to come, he knew and was gleeful in anticipation.

Because you see, it was my first show and everyone knows that the first gig is the one which shines as special, as sacred, and sometimes rarely..there is even magic at work.

I slept through the set up, my clogged and cranky head on his shoulder but something made me open my eyes and try to focus them.
A laughing boy with eyes the colour of a midnight sea..ok so I couldn't actually make out the colour but I knew they were blue..and a smile that melted my heart.
Untangling myself from my companion's lap I shyly made my way to as close as I dared to get and memorized every detail of his face and even his voice as he chatted with this person and that.
Behind me I could hear photos being taken but dimly as from far away because at that moment life wasn't anything but song and emotion and blue eyes..

Do I remember the music that night? Certainly, how could one forget..but the music cannot compare with me skipping back, cold forgotten, utterly captivated..or maybe the music can compare because without it, there would have been no moment of pure and glorious beauty that cold night in January.

Over the years I saw that boy again and again at various times and as I grew from girlhood to teen to adult, as he grew from young man to a mature one, I could still recall that first smile, that first glimpse of kindness of both thought and expression.

And one night when I never expected to see him, a night of fearing for a few much admired and finding something else entirely...somehow we were all in the same place at the same time just like that first gig years before..

It would be the last time that some of us were ever togther in one room again.
to be continued.....

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