this post will conform to no category!

keep it like a secret

air france: collapsing at yr doorstep

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

today i’ve been thinking about secrets.

maybe– probably– it’s because i’ve been reading stephen king’s “dark tower” series (based on meredith’s excellent recommendation), which is an incredible, fantastical, nail-biting journey through time and space and all of the unknowns in between. like any good tale, the characters must rely on their cunning, not to mention bravery, in order to overcome tremendous obstacles and gather pieces from the wreckage… pieces that, when put together, will lead them to a place called the dark tower.

the lands they wander are full of secrets… artifacts that may be from the past, but possibly remain from the future… bits of language that, in their vague familiarity, seem eerily alien… endless worlds connected by doors that lie waiting for someone to turn the key, which can be a stick of wood, a riddle, an electronic keypad.

i will most definitely write a review of the series when i’m done, but today i decided to let the idea of secrets tip toe around my brain for a while. in spite of the constant threat of death, i envy the characters in the book; they all have puzzles to solve, codes to unravel. each one of them is given a secret that they carry for future use in their quest, a secret that baffles them until suddenly, click, everything aligns, and click, the key turns.

even though sometimes secrets can be V. Bad Things, more often i believe them to be beautiful, silvery creatures, too ethereal to be exposed to the world. they are so fragile, so delicate that reality would crush them into a fine dust, and so we have to protect them, treasure them, keep them safe.

i think everyone needs a secret.

perhaps that’s why we are drawn to things with an air of mystery, of trembling possibility, as if we could take possession of it by being the only person who fully *grasps* it. as if the secret is a key that fits only into the lock of our minds, crafted out of shiny bits of memory and forged in forgotten feelings.

as a child, i devised a secret language with my friend paige. even though it was simple in its construction, the language cast a boundary around us, a magical, invisible wall that surrounded us like a cocoon. it was as if we had created a new world simply by employing the power of words, words that seemed like gibberish to everyone else, because they didn’t understand our secret. they didn’t have the key.

and then, of course, i read “the secret garden.”

“The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite.”

i’ve always wanted a secret garden, and i think someday i actually might have one, even if i have to create it instead of discovering it with the help of a little robin.

i miss those days of secret languages and tiny diaries that lock with brass keys, but in their place, i have new secrets that give me equal joy. i see a friend’s face in a certain light and *know* them more than i ever have before, in ways they aren’t aware of. i read the name of the person who donated an old library book and store the information away, a trinket in my pocket. i experience emotions that i can’t express and then feel glad, relieved, that i can’t share them, so that they remain pure and preserved. a song plays in a cafe, and the person across from me has no inkling of the flood of memories washing over me.

everyone needs a secret.

sometimes secrets come to you like tiny submarines breaching yr shores. other times, you have to seek them out. i want my whole life to be full of seeking, of exploring both familiar things, like the voice of a friend, and unknown things, like peeking through the grimy windows of an old store that everyone else has forgotten about (i won’t forget).

in the spirit of the search, i leave you with this little poem.

***

In the Library

by Charles Simic

for Octavio

 

There’s a book called

“A Dictionary of Angels.”

No one has opened it in fifty years,

I know, because when I did,

The covers creaked, the pages

Crumbled. There I discovered

 

The angels were once as plentiful

As species of flies.

The sky at dusk

Used to be thick with them.

You had to wave both arms

Just to keep them away.

 

Now the sun is shining

Through the tall windows.

The library is a quiet place.

Angels and gods huddled

In dark unopened books.

The great secret lies

On some shelf Miss Jones

Passes every day on her rounds.

 

She’s very tall, so she keeps

Her head tipped as if listening.

The books are whispering.

I hear nothing, but she does.

***

here’s to finding our own secret gardens.

LINKS

check out this amazing slow motion video micael posted, featuring people getting punched in the face. awesome.

if you liked showbiz as a kid, you will LOVE the new MGMT video for “electric feel” (featured on my winter 08 mix).

china’s etiquette for the olympics… hey, at least the “in case of vomit” suggestion is helpful.

even though i think ratings lists are dumb, i can’t help but be proud of houston for winning the #1 “best city” according to kiplinger’s. go h-town! p.s. austin was #6, not too shabby.

© 2008 Poshdeluxe.