Sunday afternoon behind the Castle
Mar. 14th, 2005 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalon"It's nice here with a view of the trees
Eating with a spoon?
They don't give you knives?
'Spect you watch those trees
Blowing in the breeze
We want to see you lead a normal life"
~Peter Gabriel
Lead a normal life
At first glance Rhodes Hall hits with a bit of a shock to the uninitated eye. It is, after all, a bit unusual to see a stone Castle casually sitting along 21st century Peachtree Rd. Built in 1904 by the furniture magnate of the same name, the Castle sits with the quiet confidence of a fortress that has never been breeched. It gazes out across the horizon of Atlanta, taking in the crops of brash, overpriced townhouses that sprout up like Kudzu to strangle and drag down the ambitious skyline. You can feel it's disdain for these candy buildings, these hollow dollhouse homes for toy people with toy purposes, trying to buy their way into a temporary sense of importance. The old Castle is patient though, it has watched this city rise out of the shadows of the railroad boundarys, like Athena rising out of the shattered skull of Zeus, to reach upward into the heavens, lifting herself up like a slow motion prayer out of the waves of riot fires splashing across her history.
I'm sitting in L____'s truck, parked behind the castle, under the shade of a low hanging tree. She has an impromptu meeting with a client inside, leaving me and her dog to soak in a wonderful sneak peek of Spring. Her dog, realizing that theres no more snacks or cookies to cajoll out of me, has decided to take in a quick nap in the back seat. I've got Album 88's ska show on the radio, letting my thoughts sail along the narrative of a good novel, there is a light breeze flickering shadows across both the dashboard and my pages. The breeze picks up speed into a gust, and has plucked off the branches, one single green leave to soar across the wind, and navigate through the open window of the cab, and it makes an emergency landing dead center of my book. I'm taken aback by this sudden appearance of a leave. I take it, if not as a sign, as some kind of hint, or nudge to the shoulder, from a forgotten nature god. I look out the window and feel the ice-clean sky above me, there is a sudden ringing of church bells from somewhere, meshing up with the trombones and drums of the radio, forming a kind of hybrid music: Gregorian Ska? I close my eyes and let the light dance across the curtains of my eyes to this new convergence of sound and song.
I take it in and hold it as long as I can. Flower seconds blooming across the shores of my life. Secret seconds that are framed by the hearts eye in memory, to prove that exsistence is not all shit and madness.
The bells stop. A car door slams somewhere. The breeze shifts. The song on the radio fades to a PSA. Back here in the now, no less beautiful, but no longer mine. I return to my novel, my ticking wait, my Sunday afternoon golden, I return all the way back to normal, back to me and now back to you.
Eating with a spoon?
They don't give you knives?
'Spect you watch those trees
Blowing in the breeze
We want to see you lead a normal life"
~Peter Gabriel
Lead a normal life
At first glance Rhodes Hall hits with a bit of a shock to the uninitated eye. It is, after all, a bit unusual to see a stone Castle casually sitting along 21st century Peachtree Rd. Built in 1904 by the furniture magnate of the same name, the Castle sits with the quiet confidence of a fortress that has never been breeched. It gazes out across the horizon of Atlanta, taking in the crops of brash, overpriced townhouses that sprout up like Kudzu to strangle and drag down the ambitious skyline. You can feel it's disdain for these candy buildings, these hollow dollhouse homes for toy people with toy purposes, trying to buy their way into a temporary sense of importance. The old Castle is patient though, it has watched this city rise out of the shadows of the railroad boundarys, like Athena rising out of the shattered skull of Zeus, to reach upward into the heavens, lifting herself up like a slow motion prayer out of the waves of riot fires splashing across her history.
I'm sitting in L____'s truck, parked behind the castle, under the shade of a low hanging tree. She has an impromptu meeting with a client inside, leaving me and her dog to soak in a wonderful sneak peek of Spring. Her dog, realizing that theres no more snacks or cookies to cajoll out of me, has decided to take in a quick nap in the back seat. I've got Album 88's ska show on the radio, letting my thoughts sail along the narrative of a good novel, there is a light breeze flickering shadows across both the dashboard and my pages. The breeze picks up speed into a gust, and has plucked off the branches, one single green leave to soar across the wind, and navigate through the open window of the cab, and it makes an emergency landing dead center of my book. I'm taken aback by this sudden appearance of a leave. I take it, if not as a sign, as some kind of hint, or nudge to the shoulder, from a forgotten nature god. I look out the window and feel the ice-clean sky above me, there is a sudden ringing of church bells from somewhere, meshing up with the trombones and drums of the radio, forming a kind of hybrid music: Gregorian Ska? I close my eyes and let the light dance across the curtains of my eyes to this new convergence of sound and song.
I take it in and hold it as long as I can. Flower seconds blooming across the shores of my life. Secret seconds that are framed by the hearts eye in memory, to prove that exsistence is not all shit and madness.
The bells stop. A car door slams somewhere. The breeze shifts. The song on the radio fades to a PSA. Back here in the now, no less beautiful, but no longer mine. I return to my novel, my ticking wait, my Sunday afternoon golden, I return all the way back to normal, back to me and now back to you.
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on 2005-03-14 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-03-14 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-03-15 01:18 am (UTC)