8. 26. 97

This hue brought to you by my birthday.

It’s hot and muggy. In fact, the air is pregnant with moisture but it just won’t rain. I hate days like this and here I am at the bus stop, waiting for the bus that isn’t coming. Bugs are everywhere. More precisely, they are attacking me. I think it’s the flowers on my dress. As if people didn’t have enough to look at before, now they can watch the foreign woman swat bugs. There is one reprieve: Shaking The Tree. It was a good choice for the day. I’d almost forgotten I had that CD and it’s been so long since I listened to it that it feels new again. The louder I play it, the less I feel the sweat running down my back. All of the buildings, all of those cars were once just a dream in somebody’s head Music is our own way of recording memories on disk. You pop in a CD and suddenly it’s accessing feelings in your brain, which you think you’ve forgotten, that in turn elicit visual images associated with a specific period of time. I’m remembering the crest of the long bridge over the Columbia at daybreak nearly ten years ago. The long midnight drive was nearly over and the fatigue made it seem like taking those sharp curves at 70 mph was a good idea. I don’t even know who was driving. Was it me? A half a world away, I’m sitting in the air conditioned comfort of bus 46. The scene is polluted with cars and hangul signs. I think about how that morning in the car, speeding by the ocean, I never imagined I’d be where I am now. The future seems more uncertain than ever. Takin' that ride to nowhere...

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