trixel

"When he moves I watch him from behind
He turns and laughter flickers in his eyes
Intent and direct when he speaks, I watch his lips
And when he drives I love to watch his hands
White and smooth almost feminine, almost American, I have to watch him.

In his face age descends on youth, exaggeration on the truth
He caught me looking then but soon his eyes forgot
And everything he seems to do reflects just another shade of blue
I saw him searching into you and ached a while

I watch his lips caress the glass,
His fingers stroke its stem and pass
To lift a cigarette at last, he dries his eyes
From a shadow by the stair
I watch as he weeps unaware
That I'm in awe of his despair"

-Ode to a Boy by Yazoo

This song makes me remember sharing a dorm room with the first love (unrequited) of my life, Astrid when I was 16 and 17. As I've mentioned before I went to a christian missionary run international school in south india. The school sat about 8000 feet above sea level in the southern tip of the Palani Hills in the Western Ghat range of Tamil Nadu.

The school was founded in 1901 but American missionaries. The original founders arrived on sedan chairs carried by Indians they'd hired. The lake which the school was built next to was manmade and three miles in circumference. If any school inmates were caught smoking, the administration would force us to jog around the lake at dawn for several weeks. We tried very hard not to get caught at smoking, anything.

This song reminds me of twilight in my dorm room. The dormitory was built around the time the school was founded. My room had a long narrow window with a window seat which went from the ceiling. The fog, which was really low lying cloud cover, rolled into my room. My white plastered walls were stained with soot from candles. Many evenings, the fog caressed me, cold and wet.

I remember listening to David Bowie's Young Americans too.

I had a strange issue with depth perception from a massively psychedelic hashish experience. We bought it from hippies, and I have no idea what it was cut with. Everything went flat. I remember holding everything in a picture book, and turning the pages of my life. It messed up my depth perception intermittently for several months after. I suspect mostly because my internal sense of reality was sort of bubbled.

Astrid let me climb into her bed when I felt strung out. She'd hold me until I fell asleep. I was strung out likely more than I should have been.

When I listened to this song, I used to wish it was about me. I wished to be an elegant boy.

Later As per boy's journal request:

If there is one person you can't stop thinking about post this sentence in your journal.