Journal Journey

My true journal,
which I can never share;
You know it well.
It is concealed through fear.
My true thoughts
which I dare not say;
You've heard them all before
and turned away.
The real journey,
which we all must take;
it's brutal and I'm tired,
but I'm still awake.

Thursday, January 20th
2:31pm

His Heart was so in It...

Recorded on my Phone

Glen Hansard at something called the "Burgundy Stain Sessions" at Le Poisson Rouge last night where I attended with my sweety and his cousin E. When she emailed me about it a week or so ago, I saw Glen's name on the list of guests and was like, I'm there. Like many people I discovered him when I saw "Once" the little movie that was a hit a few years ago and was won so many awards. It was made in like a week or something and captured not only the fictional story of two broken hearts coming together to make incredible music but apparently the very beginning of a real budding romance between the two completely non-traditionally trained actors. E. told us that they split up a while ago though.  But that doesn't stop Glen from singing about it with brutal passion and humor in a voice that just cuts right through me every time. At his best he literally sores on his own vocals. He's having so much fun being right in the moment, you and everyone around you can feel it.

Glen Hansard in "Once"

Beth Orton performed beautifully as well and it appears she was sporting a little baby bump under her sweater. She looked about a few months along. I'm not good at assessing these things but it's so amazing the thought that a life in the womb is already on stage. Imagine the places you were in your mom's womb that you will never remember or that she nener told you about.  It's kind of mind boggling. Obviously an entirely different state of awareness is happening in utero that we have no real clue about. Back to the show.

Afterward, as we made our way to the exit, we got slowed down by a throng of would be straglers near a table where someone was selling CDs and albums. I moved to the end of it and saw that the stragglers were really a line of people waiting to say hi to Glen Hansard who was standing a few feet from the stairs which lead out of the club. F. and I were dissppointed when we first saw him on stage that he wasn't as emmaciated and scraggly as he was in the movie but then again he was probably quite literally starving at the time. He was puffier and more manicured last night but that was all forgiven the minute he began to play. His beard may be groomed and pretty but the music is still raw and gritty.

I watched as people stood for horrible flash-washed pictures with him before I decided to casually cut the line, to say hi, shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed the show. He told me he told me in so many words that he though it was a really nice setting and I agreed. I really enjoy the general informality of performances at Le Poisson Rouge. F. and E. followed behind me shaking hands and exchanging words with Glen as well before we emerged into the cold air on Bleecker all happy and howling. And then we went to Two Boots and reminisced about the 80s and art and a time when creativity was not thought to be successful only if it was commercial. It was a really nice Friday night with two of my favorite people, a great beginning to the weekend.

Snow

Snow Branches
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

The quality of silence when it snows deep in the forest is surreal. When all you can hear is your own breath and the snow flakes landing on branches, it makes me so still, it's as if I can hear more than normal. The movement of snow is so peaceful, it makes me still inside. It also makes me laugh and smile because snowflakes dance on air. They take so many different paths from the sky to the earth, but always, they come down.

I haven't been in the forest in the winter for a years. The last time was at a Bed and Breakfast in February at a place in Hyde Park. We stayed in a room on the top floor that had a walk out porch facing the back of the house which sits in the woods. We sat out on the porch and looked at all the trees covered in snow and it just made a part of me sigh that never gets to sigh, never even gets to unfold most of the time. I could feel the forest inside me. There was nothing else to do, nothing else I wanted but to share it.