Sunday morning coming down, Sunday morning brings the dawn in, Sunday bloody sunday! There is something about a Sunday that makes a soul feel at peace. I am not talking about any religioso meanderings, more the fact that no one who is anyone does anything on a Sunday. No ‘service provider’, no official people, no one who wants anything needs anything demands anything is doing anything but ‘lazing on a Sunday afternoon’ – and neither am I!
Sitting up at my window, looking at a guy sitting under a tree caning a bottle of vodka, just a little way up from my doorstep, his Sunday morning not ‘coming down’ but rather staying stoned on spirits of a distinctly unspiritual kind, I felt a pang of relief. Sobriety! No headaches, no comedowns, needing anything to feel alright, no huge ups, no vast deep downs. I swear if those Blue Angels come flying down on my peace and quietude today I will declare my own little literary war against the machine and start to rage.
I have a sense of extreme peace, of ultimate serenity today. I don’t know if this is the calm before the storm, of the eye of it, existing in the middle of the maelstrom as it rages around. The sirens feel distant as they thunder past my window, the cars are a thousand miles behind, the walkers down the street walk to an invisible beat, as I play my favorite 60’s garage rock mix: The Jades, The Hangmen, Vanguards, Danny and the Counts, and their darkly minor chord groove: they play a wiggling do the sweetpea gentle Lynch-ian jive in the background, making me realize that my room needs a little more velvet and a little less clean white spaces. Groovy. Visions of girls in thigh high kinky gogo boots, and sparkling teeth, drawing invisible squares in the air, as they sip at tiny bottles of cola through paper straws, and winking at the boys. Entire legions of Bewitched beehive babes doing the limp wristed twist around my room. I’m Gonna Slide with the Dagenites and head back to my window seat. This club is hopping and I am way too chilled out for this scene.
I have noticed a curious phenomenon from my window: people look up at me, and stare back. A few bold souls say hello, or tell me it is a good spot for a cat, or try to start a conversation. I feel invulnerable up here. Clearly not invulnerable enough. This is my domain. This is my space and yet the passers by think they can still interact with me. I am not a sociable soul. I will be frank, after everything I struggle to play well with others. I am self protective and spiky. The audacity of someone on the street yelling up to me at my window! The audacity of me to stare out of it at them….
Out there are the cigarette curbside smokers, the puff puff tokers, the drinkers, the revellers; the boys who having got their girlfriends wrecked carry them home loudly laughing…the crack induced shouters, the coffee carrying walkers. The brown paper bag carriers. The dog walkers. The cat carriers. Those bound for Polk…and those headed to cop further down into the ‘Loin.
The Blue Angels are still buzzing my quiet in the afternoons. Breaking the stillness. I am trying to embrace it by switching from my 60’s pulp pop bands to Led Zep I. The roar of the engines meld quite nicely with Plant’s yelping and Page’s furious guitar. They fight for dominance. They fight for the right to party over the demiurge’s dull brutal push towards death.
I drew my curtains. I shut it all out. I will wait until the night falls to go staring. Nothing interesting happens in the daylight, and besides….today I feel infused with a sense of peace, which though cracked in the afternoon, left me renewed.
If you see a figure staring at the window…don’t shout up. It is the only way some of us can think….