Unreality
Yellow Canyon by Helen Frankenthaler
When I first arrived in Santa Ynez, about 4 p.m., the world seemed unreal. It was essentially the first time I had been out in a week, and I was already feeling sort of dislocated after our long trip. But it was very hot...that peculiarly harsh, dry summer-in-the-Valley heat...and glaringly bright...and the town was an abandoned place, everything standing still or in slow motion. It all seemed a little too vivid, on the edge of jarring. It was a weird way to come out of isolation.
The only sounds were skateboards clattering against a sidewalk as a small group of boys inexpertly practiced their moves again and again in a parking lot. I half-smiled at them as I walked past, thinking that they might be the only people for miles who were having fun, but they did not acknowledge me, and I realized I was invisible. I thought of that poem from Ferlinghetti about the penny candy store...details very different, but the sense of unreality quite the same:
The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
fell in love
with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
the licorice sticks
and tootsie rolls
and Oh Boy Gum
And as it so often does, poetry, even in snippets, brought me comfort, because I knew what he meant, and I suddenly felt privileged to be walking and conscious in this twilight zone, and there was beauty in it. Like Ferlinghetti, I fell in love with unreality, and that was far from the first time, and it keeps on happening.
The shadows of trees and buildings fell in abstract shapes on the pavement. The shop windows stared wide-eyed and unblinking, though their signs said they were closed, painted doors glowed, things looked metallic, stark and shining. And now that I had found the strange appeal of this dream, I inhabited it fully.
This may not have been the proper mind set for my destination, which was a wine-tasting room where my friend Jerry and I would be the featured readers in a fundraising storytelling event. Nor was I in the proper physical mode, beset by laryngitis which rendered my voice raspy and husky if I managed to get it out at all. I had rested in silence all day and hoped that when I spoke I’d sound not so much strained as sexy. Anyway, my intentions were noble. I had made a commitment. The show must go on.
And this post isn’t about the show itself. Suffice it to say that I broke into a coughing fit at one point and had to pause for water and breath, which was humiliating, but eventually I made friends with the microphone, up close, and semi-whispered my way through. Let it also be said that there are wonderful folks who are happy to gather in a cool, dim-lit space for no other reason than to listen to stories, good old-fashioned spoken word, the stuff of which our very souls are stitched, but sometimes we forget. People were forgiving and kind, Jerry as always was brilliant, and a sense of fellowship prevailed that contrasted with the stark unreality outside. Funds were raised to paint wooden horses and buy fancy trash cans. Tentative hugs were hugged. Smiles hidden behind masks revealed themselves in the eyes of friends.
It wasn’t dark when we stepped outside afterwards, but it was very cool, almost brisk. That’s how it is in the Valley. The sweltering heat abruptly plummets into evening chill, and you have to be ready for both. I have a tendency to judge myself, usually too sternly, but I reflected now with some satisfaction that I had managed to embrace the lonesome beauty of the afternoon and enter the din of a social situation, and I had found the beauty in each. So, good for me. I am a woman who is ready for both.
But my voice is gone.