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somewhere over the rainbow (and other stories)

  Exactly two years ago I found myself flying through a corner of a rainbow, and landed in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the last film festival I traveled to, a brutal and sweet experience in the harshest of realities, trying to wrap my arms around the slipperiest industry and failing magnificently. Surrounded by fresh faces and eager eyes I ran from the rooms and into the street time and again, wandering off with the camera in my bag as a companion. I took pictures of a blind man that sang on the same corner every day, of wedding parades, of an old woman waiting to see the dentist.  Literally somewhere over the rainbow, I met the ugliest answers to questions I had been dragging my feet towards for years. Cramming the most delicious food into my mouth, joking at the nightly rooftop cocktail parties, grinning like the Cheshire Cat it was all coming to an end. Actually, it had ended before it even started though - and on the plane back to New York and finally Moscow the bone-crunching ...
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where you get that sugar from?



The city is waking up. Awkward and naked, as if the elastic waistband from underwear marks its hips. Mascara smudged, trash cans are on their sides rocking slightly in a low wind that comes up from the river. The snow is gone here. Forgotten mittens and store receipts, dog shit and rotting leaves. Everything awry.

I don't like sleeping alone on foreign beds, no matter how soft the covers.

I miss you.

I wander in darkness, headlights blooming in my tired eyes. I walk in the gutter, not the sidewalk. The Empire State Building is white, magnificent above me for a little while. I feel a bit like Brando in Last Tango. I want to chew some gum and stick it under a railing. Some mark that says I was back for a few days. Yes, lost. Yes, foolish as ever.


And now it is raining. A fat lady is running for the bus, a smile pasted across her face. The driver waits for her, umbrella crashing into her coat as she disappears inside.

Men wear heavy perfume, and I smell Polo, Ralph Lauren as they pass, thick and mouthy in between the raindrops. There is construction down here. Workers in slick yellow suits are digging a great hole on Fulton Street.
"Yo, Steve." On yells from below. "Yo, Steeeeeeeeeve."

Yes, I am back to eat great bowls of soup alone. To gaze up at the fog hiding the rooftops. To buy birthday presents for my little girl. Maybe a jar of maple syrup.

A lumpy fellow is dressed as the Statue of Liberty, dancing around on a particularly wet corner, passing out flyers. Behind him, a new place that serves the best bacon egg and cheese I have had in a long time. Music is playing, John Lee Hooker.

Sugar,
Sugar Mama,
Sugar all over this town.
Sugar Mama,
Where you get your sugar from?

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Mely said…
Please do not forget to buy Canned Chipotles in your way back to Russia. :) I do not if you have room in your suitcase for them to go alone with the many presents for the lovely and sweet E.

I read somewhere you like them.

So bad you are 3 hours drive from here. I will invite you over for authentic homestyle Mexican.

Have a safe trip.
February 28, 2011 at 11:18 AM
Annie said…
Brilliant.

You can bring a place to life in words like nobody's business.
February 28, 2011 at 5:47 PM
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