"Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain't
something else. This is
this." -
Robert DeNiro as Michael in The Deer Hunter
Somehow this phrase gets stuck in the back of my
head when I am trying to concentrate on things.
The beginning of this movie plays in my head, reminding me of a midwestern
childhood where weekends were spent in the lower level of the
Knights of Columbus hall. I would explore the bathrooms, hiding behind folding chairs, and testing the
doors to
storage closets while my parents drank cheap beer out of high-ball glasses.
This is
this.
This is not something else. Concentrate on what you are doing, your
nostalgia flows like weakened
briny syrup through your
sinuses, it is apparent and it makes you cry, I tell myself. Yours is not the first
heart to be taken away and replaced with such salt. It weakens as time passes and comes out as
tears. The world does not need to see this,
and I can't help but show it.
This is not something else. This is not the past, and it deserves undivided
attention. The past has its time, and it has its place, in a dry age where there are musty
sleeping bags and wood paneled basements.
This is
everything, and I keep mixing it with something else. I keep tasting the past in the back of my throat, making my life a
saline blur.