heavy

A drunken man is thrashing in the grip of the security officers. It takes four men to wrestle him down the stairs, smashing elbows into his face as he flounders like a catfish on the shore - slipping once and again from them. And then, he is gone. Tens of thousands of people sit respectfully in the stadium. The crowd on the floor are packed against each other, and in the distance the stage sits empty under bright lights. I am with N and her girlfriend Tanya, as we chew watermelon gum and wait for Metallica to come on. Yes, Metallica. When she asked me if I wanted to see them, I said yes without hesitating. I feel different these days, and going to see a heavy metal act seemed like a great way to test my new sensibilities.

"MEETALLEEEEKUH." The audience shouted randomly, adding the extra syllable "eekuh". Eventually they came on. 

I tried to find the beat, lost in the punk rock of my youth and confused by the mechanical, blistering rhythm, no snare drum - all bass kick and toms. I've jammed with half of the guys from the Swans, worked with performers like Diamanda Galas, The Blue Man Group - - you can't scare me with sheer atonal noise. It took some time for me to find it. The audience was like some kind of army, a million right arms pumping into the air in perfect unison. I imagined big angry robots making music from ones and zeroes, fighting off the random two or three that tried to join in. I watched grown men playing air guitar solos, twisting in slow-motion circles. A woman next to us was dubbed "the geometry teacher", complete in her sweater vest  and thick glasses. She jumped up sometimes, double pumping, fingers splayed in angry patterns in the air. The stale watermelon gum in my mouth seemed oddly appropriate. I felt this was music of pain, unrelenting. This was mathematic music - - precise, intricate and cold. This was war music, death music. It has its place, I thought. It speaks to any Russian and turns them into fanatic sufi whirling dervishes, at a Qawwali performance. This is a sort of religious ecstasy I was watching - and not really understanding. 

The last songs had a more Eastern melody to them, and I suddenly felt in sync - the paired guitars speaking in these painful intervals between the notes. I know this scale. It bleeds. 

The concert ended with a cascade of giant black balloons that rained from the ceiling. 

We slept in with the windows open, and I made strawberry clafoutis for our breakfast. 

That night, I watched Avatar with E. She kept stopping the film, turning to smile at me, her thumbs up.

"I want to go there." She said. "I want to be a blue girl and fly a dinosaur." 

It was late, but we watched the whole film. There were moments when it scared her, when she asked me why people were hurting each other, killing each other. I told her people do that sometimes. A short moment passed as she processed this. She shouted and jumped around the living room, flying and travelled from tree to tree as she imagined an entire world around her.  I saw the same excitement, the same ecstasy as the previous night. I joined her, as we screamed like banshees and ran around the apartment with the cat hiding under a chair. 

"I'm going to save the trees." She kept saying.

In the morning, we talked about painting ourselves blue. I brought her to detskie sad, our breath cold in front of us making little clouds in the air. We ran down the sidewalk, pretending we were flying.

I had a morning meeting, and listened to a small voice inside me that told me not to take the metro. It was  only a few weeks ago, on a monday much like this one, in the station I would pass through, that one of those bombs exploded. This voice is the one that tells the expecting father to sell his motorcycle, the voice that tells you to take any work you are offered, the voice that says be humble, be safe. I walked across two bridges as the traffic absorbed me, as I thought about the cold April wind, as heavy metal music played from an empty carousel in a vacant lot.

red, yellow, blue, green.

Spring in Moscow smells like oil paint and mud. Handfuls of black haired workers paint everything in sight, dripping fire engine red and egg yolk yellow, splashing middle blue and acid green on every banister and bench, every gate and metro entrance. They lounge in their coveralls, smoking cigarettes, eyeing everyone on their way to work. Everything is soft and wet and sticky, as one more layer of paint dries slowly in the sun. Everything I see has gotten a little bit thicker, cruder, more grotesque. I imagine the city will eventually become one giant lump decorated in these 4 childish colors.

The half-empty wine bottles on the kitchen table look beautiful the next morning. Coffee tastes especially delicious. Now E draws pictures of me with a guitar, or clouds and flowers and little birds. Sometimes N is half asleep, bringing my hands to her body in the warmth of the covers. There is a fragile peace and balance to my days now. And now the old wounds are naked in the sun, white and twisted like spiderwebs that could not fully be brushed away.

There is a new restlessness worming its way inside me. There is nowhere to hide here. And maybe, no reason to.

Today I saw a child's toy abandoned on the sidewalk - a little lamb, staring up at me.

Helpless, was my first thought. The next, was to buy something to scrape paint away, down to the bare metal.

i'm just learning how to crawl

Another Sunday night concert has come and gone, this one punctuated by the cry of an infant. The song was new, a mess of good intentions - about an Appaloosa with no name, about E's drawings that hang on the fridge, about everything. Playing live music is a sort of roller-coaster ride/balancing act that I am deeply attracted to. Sometimes the plates all crash to the floor, sometimes there is an exhilarating near miss. Sometimes you come up with the brass ring and wonder how they hell you had the impulse to grab it.

I'll leave it to you decide what may have happened.

Watching these videos the next day I see the train wreck, the naked ideas. I also see the will to continue, when things go wrong. In truth, this is me learning to crawl.

N is there in the darkness of the audience, her face like a moon, someone to focus on, someone to sing to. Someone to sing about. China to Arkansas is for her.

Playing solitaire on a hotel bed

Some shitty coffee

and some room service eggs.

It ain’t living.

It's just making do.

And I’m on the next train to you.

And I’m coming on the next train to you. 

when she comes through the door.

leaves all her things on the floor.

brown eyes so big.

in her dirt you dig.

all the way to china

and arkansas

china to arkansas from marco North on Vimeo.
">china to arkansas from marco North on Vimeo.

And this song - Black on Black - is about my past. 

black on black from marco North on Vimeo.
">black on black from marco North on Vimeo.

Friday afternoon, Monday morning

Friday afternoon, back to back meetings with finicky clients that could not have gone better. The sun slams down Lesnaya, and I'm heading back for the metro when I call N.

"Just walk." She tells me, clever woman that she is.

And I do, past Bellorusskaya and down Tverskaya with a light wind on me, dust kicking up in the street. Everyone is outside now, smoking cigarettes and staring at the traffic, parading the sidewalk in new shoes. I smell diesel and a hint of grass growing. There are tall women - like magnificent horses passing me. Grotesque heels, lifeless eyes. There are men with thousand-mile stares and long cigarette ashes. It's remarkably quiet.

I pass the zoo, the US embassy, cross the river and feel the earth disappearing beneath me. I take E from school early and we act like birds on the backstreets on the way to the european shopping center where I buy her a ciao bimbo ice cream cone every Friday. Half pink, half baby blue - - both bubble gum flavored - - her favorite. I always have to beg the server to give her some sprinkles, not the decorative flower made of plastic. Her hand in mine we ride the elevators for a while and then home to the clean apartment.

On Saturday N enters the place with the second set of keys I gave her. The sound of the lock turning is very comforting.

We drink coffee from the new orange pot that makes two cups, and then to the photography biennale close to Red Square. Bumping into my freckle-faced assistant Sasha and her visiting Italian boyfriend we stand for some time making jokes in various languages, especially about the Russians who insist on getting their picture taken in front of the pictures, arms folded across their chest with deep satisfaction in tight sweaters and shiny shoes.

And then we're late. but not late after all to see a foreign film, feeding each other nuts and various candies I find in my pockets for a long time. Her head on my shoulder, my arm around her I realize I haven't sat in a movie theater in almost 10 years. We are starving and it's mutual - the Starlite Diner close to Mayakovskaya. Sharing the cheeseburger and fries, we eavesdrop on the conversations around us. And then home to the little world we build every time we are together, and lost hours that become Sunday and long naps and somehow making dinner.

Monday morning brings a light rain. I miss New York. I miss the cherry blossoms around the reservoir. I miss the dancing clock in the Central Park Zoo. I miss Eisenbergs and Katz's, Russ & Daughters and Bereket. I miss getting phone calls from friends playing impromptu shows at The Living Room and being there in two minutes. I miss going to parties on rooftops and knowing no one there. I miss the Mermaid Parade and cold beers on the splintering boardwalk.