Here is a delightful
sentence I read this morning: The painter
and the host almost fight because a man breaks lumps of sugar while the gypsy
sings. It sounds like someone placed a string of magnetized words across
the refrigerator door. I laughed out loud when I read them. The cadence compels
me say them out loud. The imagery conjures up a world, and for every picture a
thousand more unfold. The painter. I
picture an easel, a palette, brushes, an air of otherworld-ness. The host makes me think we are in a café
or at a private party. The fight suggests
to me they are men, which suggests to me that I have a bias. The gypsy sings and I see the dark
countenance, the flowing presence, the bells, joy, sensuality, passion. I hear
a melody that moves like lovers and rouges. As for the lumps of sugar, this
must be from another place and time, and it must be a noisy process breaking
lumps of sugar.....

I was, of course,
reading these words in context, but they still stood out in a particularly
nonsensical, I want to go there kind of way. How nice for the gypsy that her
music mattered enough that it should not be drowned out by lumps of sugar,
though no doubt the near fight was worse still.....

Ultimately, this
sentence today might be: The waitress and
the sound man almost fight because a man orders a cappuccino while the song
writer performs. Now we are in a bar in Nashville. But the now of the scene
above is Paris in the early 1930’s. The writer? It is Anais Nin retelling a fun
time to her diary. The words are not made up or even necessarily creative. She
simply has a way with words that re-creates the world and keeps it alive. She
makes me want to write.....

Kim ....