strings and things

if my heart were an instrument, i think it would be a mandolin. i can’t quite explain it. i listen to music on bush taxis, and the songs always play at random, so i never know what to expect… and yet every time a song with a mandolin comes on, i actually feel it plucking at my heart strings. it’s a very strange and intimate sensation, such that i feel exposed in the group of strangers that are my fellow passengers. the music hits my ears and suddenly it’s as if everyone in the car knows something about me, something very personal, though they stare straight ahead in dark silence.

night traveling is pretty dark. there are no street lights, so shapes and figures come into view only as the dim headlights of a beat up vehicle (forget halogen) cast faint shadows. that, and the glow of lit wicks soaked in coco butter or kerosene, which light the faces of women selling bread, sugar cane and oranges. the darkness lends itself to introspection, and i come home feeling quaint and relaxed. it’s a far cry from when i used to speed home from class at night, blaring my music and singing at the top of my lungs to keep myself awake and alert on I-97.

sometimes i wonder if the worlds i have lived in will one day mesh together in a way that makes any sense at all.

if not, i suppose a multiple personality disorder could be fun…