Skates 280 is this rollerskating rink off the highway with a dirty sign and a dark parking lot; a popular place for drug deals and elementary-school birthday parties. On a Friday night, it's full of people: little kids whose skates are too heavy for their skinny ankles; inexperienced skaters with one hand on the wall for support; show-offy almost-middle-aged men skating too fast or backward.
When it gets too hot to skate and my hair starts sticking to my neck, I usually go stand outside the rink, amongst the beeping, blinking arcade games that are lined up against the wall, and watch. It's interesting, observing the constant stream of people, coursing in circles, around and around and around under disco balls and smoke machines and spinning colored lights.
I was at Skates 280 a couple of weeks ago, and there was a group of boys--almost men--gathered in the center of the rink. It was five or six black boys: skin like night, shaved heads or cornrows, long sinewy muscles. They were performing all these crazy stunts like you'd never seen before--handsprings and backflips and all of that, fancy dance moves that not many people can pull off--but all on roller skates. They were graceful and dangerous, strong and a little beautiful. Funnily enough--they all looked more like the kind of thugs that you see standing on the street corner before you cross to the other side, all in their baggy jeans with chains and basketball jerseys to their knees, their heavy silvery jewelry, their do-rags and sideways caps. Stereotyping: it's bad--I know it and you know it--but everybody does it. We all feel guilty afterward, but we do it all the same. All of us. That's not really the point here, but it's interesting nonetheless.
I would have liked to go up to these boys, ask them to teach me something about grace and strength and acrobatics and general coolness, or maybe just tell them I was impressed--but I didn't do that. I couldn't do that. It would be against the rules. I'm only observing, remember?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Monday, January 8, 2007
The Secret Lives of Strangers
There are six billion, five hundred and sixty eight million, five hundred and fifty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty three people on planet Earth at this moment. Some of us are mothers, fathers, poets, preachers, killers, waiters, dreamers, lovers. All of us are strangers.
You're driving down the highway, you stop at a red light. Maybe you turn and look through the window of the car beside you--and there's somebody in there; a man or a woman, someone young or old, and in this moment, you are in the same place at the same time, so very very close. But then the light turns green again, and they drive away, and you drive away, and chances are they never even know you noticed them; they'll go home to their family--or maybe they live alone (you have no way of knowing)--and never think about you again (maybe they didn't even think about you in the first place). And you'll do the same thing. The two of you converged at that single point in space and time, and now it's over; it will never happen again. This is the way things work: we are each the center of our own universe. And if you think about this--that that person in the car next to you, and all the people on the road, and all the people in the world have their own universes at the center of which they stand, and you have no place in most of them--that feels so strange. This one, single planet pulses with the heartbeats of six billion, five hundred and sixty eight million, five hundred and fifty-seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty three separate universes, the majority of which will never even consider each other's existence.
My project is this: to hypothesize about these other worlds, the ones I will never see. I will observe, and I will imagine; I will watch people and contemplate their histories, their sadness, their joys, their secrets. I will not ask questions--I will only contemplate, speculate. I will wonder if people are watching me the same way. After all, there are six billion, five hundred and sixty eight million, five hundred and fifty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty three people in the world at this moment, and always as many possibilities.
You're driving down the highway, you stop at a red light. Maybe you turn and look through the window of the car beside you--and there's somebody in there; a man or a woman, someone young or old, and in this moment, you are in the same place at the same time, so very very close. But then the light turns green again, and they drive away, and you drive away, and chances are they never even know you noticed them; they'll go home to their family--or maybe they live alone (you have no way of knowing)--and never think about you again (maybe they didn't even think about you in the first place). And you'll do the same thing. The two of you converged at that single point in space and time, and now it's over; it will never happen again. This is the way things work: we are each the center of our own universe. And if you think about this--that that person in the car next to you, and all the people on the road, and all the people in the world have their own universes at the center of which they stand, and you have no place in most of them--that feels so strange. This one, single planet pulses with the heartbeats of six billion, five hundred and sixty eight million, five hundred and fifty-seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty three separate universes, the majority of which will never even consider each other's existence.
My project is this: to hypothesize about these other worlds, the ones I will never see. I will observe, and I will imagine; I will watch people and contemplate their histories, their sadness, their joys, their secrets. I will not ask questions--I will only contemplate, speculate. I will wonder if people are watching me the same way. After all, there are six billion, five hundred and sixty eight million, five hundred and fifty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty three people in the world at this moment, and always as many possibilities.
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