"I was weeping again, drunk on an impossible past."
And just like that everything's all right and clear again. It's the airplane radio, jazz. Armstrong, La Vie en Rose, on cue. There's a flash, as there always is, to way back, simple puppy love at chez Sacha all those years ago, watching Marion Cotillard before I'd ever her name before; before like, before this, before travel and writing, before photography and college and all the ups and downs, before Laura even. Jesus, before Laura. What was I before then? Before Mammoth? What was I? Who was I?
I was every girl's best friend.
What is that? What curse? That word comes to me more and more these days, I feel it, this something that follows me, like a veiled shadow, not strong, not a weight necessarily, secretly following in the sunlight through winter trees splattered on the ground; no outline, awash and moving and swaying in the wind with the dead branches.
Si, the curse is light, I think. It's what it bring me that weighs heavy. A lonesome heart, and like the football side of it, I'm given witness to great sights, awesome masses, magnificent expectation, proximity to what could be something truly joyous - a grand celebration that never comes. It's always taken away at the last minute, the last minutes, but leads on to the very end, like all the women in my life.
I can never quite hold on long enough.
Neither could Holland in 2010.
Nor Argentina now, on this sabbatical.
I have a kinship with never quite being good enough. I know how it feels, Messi. It's how my entire life seems to be playing out; nil-nil 'til the very end, and then some lucky soul comes pulls the rug out, and I'm left standing there dazed, middle of the pitch without having a clue as to what happened. Always thinking I could've done more, I should've. I could've done things differently, a thousand different ways, but I didn't. And now here I am, runner-up. On the world stage.
It plays again.
(short loop)
That's how music is right? Hour long album, tops. Playlist, album, mix-tape, whatever. I'm watching Almost Famous on the last leg back to LA, back to reality, and the sunny end to this stoic winter dream in the South. This movie makes me feel whole again, and young like everything used to be and nothing's changed.
They got free Johnnie Walker up here. Yeah, it's grand and the joy swells inside me. I want to see Savanna, my Penny Lane.
Cheesy right? I hope Jordan's at the airport, I hope Claire takes me back.
"So Russell, what do you love about music."
"Well, to begin with... everything."
