Fragments of Northampton
Here are some choice selections from my Moleskine journals that I write in when I hang out in Northampton. These are bits about my favorite city Northampton and everything and everyone in it. Watch for links to cool sites that may be related to the post.
8/14/2005
A black out on Main St -- Haymarket Cafe -- 4:30pm. The place got quieter. No power. Then, since the light of the afternoon still gave about as much glow as the incandescent lamps on each table, we went back to work.
Still no lights and the cafe staff take this opportunity to do some cleaning. They can't make lattes anyhow. The rain outside continues, as does the rumbling of the distant storm whose emissary has already made itself known. People look out the windows, trying to see how many other businesses on Main St are blacked out.
The air conditioning is noticeably gone now. Soon people will head towards the cool breezes of outside. They themselves creating some as they leave.
Then the word -- no power in Northampton. That means no service. The door gets propped open and the hard working Haymarket staff drinks their iced mochas while enjoying cigarettes outside.
Sirens pass causing momentary concern and relief. "Someone will fix this" satisfies the group conscience.
A man stands outside with a camera filming passersby. No artist can let an opportunity like this pass by. Consciousness changes during times like these. Societal rules are suspended, or amended, to include a more intimate contact. I can't resist the urge to be outside. Walking through downtown, not much is different. It's 5pm; shops appear closed, as they would have been anyway. Only the absence of streetlights and the presence of a standard issue officer directing traffic suggests something's not quite right.
8/24/2005
Yes, I cheated on you Northampton -- with two other cities. Can you sense that wistful look in my eye as I walk your downtown thinking of Seattle or Concord?
2/22/2006
The city lay before me, her luscious Main St wide to all-comers. My whore Northampton -- to whom I must come because I am weak in such desires. Somehow makes me feel as if I am unique, every time I am with her. I enjoy every inch of her, then, sated, I leave -- a little lighter in the heart as well as the wallet. It doesn't matter; she's worth every dollar.
8/6/2006
The figs have fallen in the Lyman Plant House. The bespeckled gardener waters the roots but leaves the fruit to make their way back to the earth. The water -- settling into dirt uncovering a musty smell -- drips from the branches, bubbles into the swell of the ground. I have found the Garden of Eden.
Butterflies and broken glass scatter around the railroad tracks where bums and teenagers still come to drink and not think about the future: Rail cars lined up waiting for their time to roll.
8/13/2006
It was the worst of insults -- the most disturbing and inhuman trick to play on another human being. He feigned misunderstanding with someone struggling with reality -- with basic human connection. She reached out of the rickety life raft she was in and thought she could grasp hold of this outstretched hand - but it was pulled away at the last minute. Her face contorted in frustration -- she had no other way to make contact -- and he knew just what she meant. He had probably been in the same boat at some point in his life and was bitter now that he was forced to swim.
She wore the ocean on her skin like a sanctuary. Sharks at her back, colorful species of fish on her arms and legs. On one leg a mermaid and eel wrapped around each other and her calf. The other carried an anchor that rested on her ankle. Always grounded, but choosing to be a fish out of water -- someone who will always be looked at.
Though I seem translucent -- I know I am visible. Strange poet girl in black and purple with jeans and soft, fuzzy cloth sewn to the hems so they flared. Writing, reading, stopping to write again as if it were medicine I needed to live on -- an inhaler for a severe asthmatic. When the world takes my breath away, all I can do is reach for my elixir. I wondered who out there captured me within their medicine cabinet.
I left Northampton with the same sort of regret I reserve for lovers and abandoned children. It hurt me to leave, but it seemed the best choice at the time.
10/21/2006
These autumn days are particularly hard -- and more so on a Saturday night in Northampton. The cockroaches (aka "non-locals") are out in full, as [NAME] would say. And still I feel if it is wrong to invoke his name. As if writing it somehow made me vulnerable again. Perhaps it is true. I still feel the pang of sadness at that loss. It feels as if I sold a family heirloom to feed my children. Certainly a decision I don't regret; but one steeped in sadness as well as necessity.
How many people sitting on public steps or sidewalks are poets and dreamers and how many have no place else to go and is there a difference?
11/5/2006
In the Haymarket today there is a Latina woman sitting at a table with a Latino man. They are dressed well and it is obvious they have a professional, yet familiar, relationship. Occasionally they reach out to each other during their conversation. Laughter is accessorized with a touch of the hand. What struck me most, though, was the determination and fire in the woman's eyes. She was discussing something she was passionate about. I could tell from how she carried herself that she was confident and well spoken. She trusted her ideas and enjoyed discovering new ones. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, I have found it in her spirit.
11/11/2006
Living Art Studio - It sits above Main St behind one large expanse of glass framed in neon and spotlights. The store's name refers to the body art they do, but tonight, with no clients, the bored artists entertain us simply by passing time.
3/11/2007
In Northampton today, I had forgotten how many beautiful women there are here. All shapes, sizes, ages, colors. Gorgeous, all of them!
4/1/2007
Northampton is a weird town, sorry, city. I just saw a man with a tall, spiky mohawk with a woman with hot pink pigtails wheeling a stroller with a real, live (and relatively average-looking) baby. There truly are all kinds of families in the world.
5/8/2007
Today I shared a sidewalk with the XIV Dalai Lama. I cannot begin to describe how I feel. The crowd outside the Hotel Northampton lingered long after he went inside. A local Tibetan woman was asked whether His Holiness would be coming out to speak. She said "no, but sometimes the mind is not ready to end the experience."
9/5/2007
At the Michelson Gallery
who doesn't like
a winding road
dirt leading
into a forest
or paved with fogged
headlights coming
from around the bend
the way it wends around
Nature herself
as if to yield to her
authority -- politely
side-stepping
the smallest of bushes
the gangliest of trees
it pleases me to see
the gentle grace
of such courtesies
so unlike the unforgiving
straightness of highways
9/25/2007
It's quarter to nine at night and 78 degrees. There's a full moon and all around me lost souls wander the walkways of Northampton. I am one of them. I am searching for something I don't know exists. I know from experience that when I leave Northampton to go home alone, I will be disappointed I didn't find it and relieved that I will be able to look again tomorrow.
8/14/2005
A black out on Main St -- Haymarket Cafe -- 4:30pm. The place got quieter. No power. Then, since the light of the afternoon still gave about as much glow as the incandescent lamps on each table, we went back to work.
Still no lights and the cafe staff take this opportunity to do some cleaning. They can't make lattes anyhow. The rain outside continues, as does the rumbling of the distant storm whose emissary has already made itself known. People look out the windows, trying to see how many other businesses on Main St are blacked out.
The air conditioning is noticeably gone now. Soon people will head towards the cool breezes of outside. They themselves creating some as they leave.
Then the word -- no power in Northampton. That means no service. The door gets propped open and the hard working Haymarket staff drinks their iced mochas while enjoying cigarettes outside.
Sirens pass causing momentary concern and relief. "Someone will fix this" satisfies the group conscience.
A man stands outside with a camera filming passersby. No artist can let an opportunity like this pass by. Consciousness changes during times like these. Societal rules are suspended, or amended, to include a more intimate contact. I can't resist the urge to be outside. Walking through downtown, not much is different. It's 5pm; shops appear closed, as they would have been anyway. Only the absence of streetlights and the presence of a standard issue officer directing traffic suggests something's not quite right.
8/24/2005
Yes, I cheated on you Northampton -- with two other cities. Can you sense that wistful look in my eye as I walk your downtown thinking of Seattle or Concord?
2/22/2006
The city lay before me, her luscious Main St wide to all-comers. My whore Northampton -- to whom I must come because I am weak in such desires. Somehow makes me feel as if I am unique, every time I am with her. I enjoy every inch of her, then, sated, I leave -- a little lighter in the heart as well as the wallet. It doesn't matter; she's worth every dollar.
8/6/2006
The figs have fallen in the Lyman Plant House. The bespeckled gardener waters the roots but leaves the fruit to make their way back to the earth. The water -- settling into dirt uncovering a musty smell -- drips from the branches, bubbles into the swell of the ground. I have found the Garden of Eden.
Butterflies and broken glass scatter around the railroad tracks where bums and teenagers still come to drink and not think about the future: Rail cars lined up waiting for their time to roll.
8/13/2006
It was the worst of insults -- the most disturbing and inhuman trick to play on another human being. He feigned misunderstanding with someone struggling with reality -- with basic human connection. She reached out of the rickety life raft she was in and thought she could grasp hold of this outstretched hand - but it was pulled away at the last minute. Her face contorted in frustration -- she had no other way to make contact -- and he knew just what she meant. He had probably been in the same boat at some point in his life and was bitter now that he was forced to swim.
She wore the ocean on her skin like a sanctuary. Sharks at her back, colorful species of fish on her arms and legs. On one leg a mermaid and eel wrapped around each other and her calf. The other carried an anchor that rested on her ankle. Always grounded, but choosing to be a fish out of water -- someone who will always be looked at.
Though I seem translucent -- I know I am visible. Strange poet girl in black and purple with jeans and soft, fuzzy cloth sewn to the hems so they flared. Writing, reading, stopping to write again as if it were medicine I needed to live on -- an inhaler for a severe asthmatic. When the world takes my breath away, all I can do is reach for my elixir. I wondered who out there captured me within their medicine cabinet.
I left Northampton with the same sort of regret I reserve for lovers and abandoned children. It hurt me to leave, but it seemed the best choice at the time.
10/21/2006
These autumn days are particularly hard -- and more so on a Saturday night in Northampton. The cockroaches (aka "non-locals") are out in full, as [NAME] would say. And still I feel if it is wrong to invoke his name. As if writing it somehow made me vulnerable again. Perhaps it is true. I still feel the pang of sadness at that loss. It feels as if I sold a family heirloom to feed my children. Certainly a decision I don't regret; but one steeped in sadness as well as necessity.
How many people sitting on public steps or sidewalks are poets and dreamers and how many have no place else to go and is there a difference?
11/5/2006
In the Haymarket today there is a Latina woman sitting at a table with a Latino man. They are dressed well and it is obvious they have a professional, yet familiar, relationship. Occasionally they reach out to each other during their conversation. Laughter is accessorized with a touch of the hand. What struck me most, though, was the determination and fire in the woman's eyes. She was discussing something she was passionate about. I could tell from how she carried herself that she was confident and well spoken. She trusted her ideas and enjoyed discovering new ones. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, I have found it in her spirit.
11/11/2006
Living Art Studio - It sits above Main St behind one large expanse of glass framed in neon and spotlights. The store's name refers to the body art they do, but tonight, with no clients, the bored artists entertain us simply by passing time.
3/11/2007
In Northampton today, I had forgotten how many beautiful women there are here. All shapes, sizes, ages, colors. Gorgeous, all of them!
4/1/2007
Northampton is a weird town, sorry, city. I just saw a man with a tall, spiky mohawk with a woman with hot pink pigtails wheeling a stroller with a real, live (and relatively average-looking) baby. There truly are all kinds of families in the world.
5/8/2007
Today I shared a sidewalk with the XIV Dalai Lama. I cannot begin to describe how I feel. The crowd outside the Hotel Northampton lingered long after he went inside. A local Tibetan woman was asked whether His Holiness would be coming out to speak. She said "no, but sometimes the mind is not ready to end the experience."
9/5/2007
At the Michelson Gallery
who doesn't like
a winding road
dirt leading
into a forest
or paved with fogged
headlights coming
from around the bend
the way it wends around
Nature herself
as if to yield to her
authority -- politely
side-stepping
the smallest of bushes
the gangliest of trees
it pleases me to see
the gentle grace
of such courtesies
so unlike the unforgiving
straightness of highways
9/25/2007
It's quarter to nine at night and 78 degrees. There's a full moon and all around me lost souls wander the walkways of Northampton. I am one of them. I am searching for something I don't know exists. I know from experience that when I leave Northampton to go home alone, I will be disappointed I didn't find it and relieved that I will be able to look again tomorrow.
posted by LTV at
9/26/2007 06:27:00 PM
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