Toys

Yesterday was a postless void for the Redline project with good reason. I am a graphic artist by trade, and my G5 workhorse has been coughing and sputtering in its twilight years. Our business had a decent month in February, and the financial committee (my wife) okayed the purchase of a new workstation.

Perched atop my dwarfed desktop is a gleaming iMac quad core with a whopping 27 inches of viewing bliss. I am this Mac's second owner in as many months. Its retail purchaser is a PC user who could not acclimate to the Macintosh interface. As a result, I landed a barely-used workstation with full warranty and free add-ons for hundreds less than I would have paid at an Apple store.

The iMac paced its way through a migration of all my files, still digging digital grooves into the new hard drive when I awoke this morning. During this initial, lengthy data port, the computer goes into full lockdown. Without the option of typing up blog entries, I grabbed ye olde guitar, a sketchbook, a pen, a capo, and a pick.

In a few moments my mind meandered off to the Boston Commons, a magical landscape in the middle of downtown. When winter's jaw loosens its bitter bite, thousands of people emerge from their cocoons to savor a day below the garden's shade trees. A brave few, mostly children, venture their way into a concrete pond, romping with friends, splashing sisters, and chasing brothers. The delicate flutter of laughter slaloms its way through wrought lampposts long before the merry sight comes into view.

As my fingers kept picking away at the strings, I became lost in the faraway place. A fictitious story began to weave itself, and I watched in amazement as the pen began to ink lyrics on the lined page. The song in its halfway-written state sets the scene for a tale about two children from different worlds who experience a moment of shalom under the park's fountain.

The problem: I don't know what have these children do next. Is this a story of bridging different worlds? Of existences that are irreconcilable? Or is it simply a snapshot of arms linking for an isolated moment? Any ideas?


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Barefoot Commons (In Progress)

v1
Little black boy
From Roxbury Station
Little white girl
From the high rise on the hill
It's a steamy July
In Downtown Crossing
But the willows cast their shade
On the garden

Chorus
Black hand, white hand
Gripping each other
Dance in circles
Sister and brother
Leaping, glittered splash
Underneath the fountain
Fifteen miles
A world apart
There's plenty of time
For broken hearts
Loosen your laces
At the barefoot Commons