Gould / Bach / Einstein & a Brif Variation on Vision No. 44

Glenn Gould / Bach / Einstein

Tomorrow is Einstein's birthday.

Or, rather, according to New York time, TODAY is his birthday.

I was listening to Glenn Gould this evening, wondering what was going through my mind, wanting something tangible to wrap my excitement around, kiss, but lacking the proper shoes, I didn't walk out by the waves. I am lucky, however, because when Gould quiets, the waves from Long Island Sound can be heard outside my bedroom window.

44:

Once, a young woman poured over her journal pages because she was sick of gardening. Once, even if the clouds hid the constellations, a lawyer's son dreamed of charting the stars. The young woman had nothing in her hands but clots of dirt from too many pansies. The lawyer's son hooked things on his ceiling each night, trying to get signs out of his head.

And when the young woman gave writing over to her body, leaning somewhere in two worlds but neither holding herself or a plot of land, something in her brain boarded up windows.

And when the lawyer's son tore the plaster off the walls, numbers knocked on his forehead. There, even walking among the hallways at college, equations wrapped up parcels of percentages and sprung numbers about his feet.

Walking, life swirls around the waist, letting all that was in ones head come up slowly--first, in the tiny bones in the feet, then, the hips get a feel for what-happens-beyond-expectation; finally, the bits of what-one-thought-was-forgotten reaches the forehead like the falling numbers off plaster, and, ignoring this brings a heavier weight than any previous anxiety.

And now, for Glenn's piece that gave me what I wanted but left me feeling distant, even still--