Saturday 6 September 2014

Living in the Moment: The Humanity of Man




Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This nickname was given to the "Negro Cavalry" by the Native American tribes they fought; the term eventually became synonymous with all of the African-American regiments formed in 1866.




It was Italian theme-night tonight.

What can I say, to every up, there seems to be a down. I like to think we, did a good job. But there is always the flip-side. Cleaning audits and such like.

But then again, sometimes, just sometimes, there are little glimmers of light in the gloomiest places which ignite like a sparkler and illuminate the idea of a dark corner, revealing it to be an endless diamond cavern.

Ideas, a new mental revelation, some unexpected life-affirming philosophical epiphany.

I had one tonight, after all the hubbub was done. An epiphany perhaps...

After a busy day, prepping items for the theme night, after a rocket of a service, with virtually everyone sitting within half-an-hour of each other, after a hectic round with a stove and grill, two guys came in to clean the extractor fan.

"Who the fuck are these brutes," I asked myself as a big, tattooed fellow strolled through the kitchen, my fucking kitchen.
He looked like he could break someone's neck with his pinkies.



I let them go about their business and went about mine.
I finished, got changed and pottered around while these two, possible undesirables, with indecipherable accents, knelt on shelves to get to the filters.

When I went back into the kitchen I began to sing the song that Gyula has only managed to get the first two words of out of his mouth,
"Buffalo soldier,"
which is usually where Gyula would stop,
but I went on, "Dreadlock Rasta,
There was a buffalo soldier,
in the heart of America.
Stolen from Africa, brought to America..."

I don't care, I thought, I've done my job, I have every right to sing Bob.
But before I had skipped a beat, the heavily-tattooed monster with his head stuck in the extractor finished my verse:
"Fighting on arrival,"
with whatever accent he had now taking on an unmistakable Jamaican twang,
"Fighting for survival," he stopped for a second.
I continued...
and then his colleague joined in...





...and so there we all were,
three hairy-arsed grown men who didn't know each other from Adam, singing Bob Marley in a kitchen at midnight...






That made me smile and say to myself much later, oh, the humanity of man to man might far outweigh his inhumanity.



That, and Lorin made me laugh.
Like she always makes me laugh.
Funny girl.
Hilarious girl.
With such high and bolstered barriers and so many things, buried so serious and deep.
Lorin, ha, I've never laughed so much as in the presence of that whirlwind, Lorin, with her quantity of energy equivalent to power a small island, or, if properly channeled and the false issues of self-worth addressed, a person who could change the lives of hundreds if not thousands of less fortunate souls.




Yes, Lorin is a brilliant, shining star to me and I never want to know anything more about her, other than what is in the moment.
Some people can't live in the moment.
Lorin can.
That makes Lorin Lorin.
I like Lorin because she is Lorin.





I'd like to pursue the idea of living in the moment, not being preoccupied with the past or the future, but I am neurotic and twisted, irreversibly conditioned and quite simply crazy.





Yes, I would like to live in the moment, as opposed to outside of it, but then I suppose I was when I was singing Buffalo Soldier.

I just never realised it.



But I do now.
I do realise it now.
I realise everything now.
Because I had an Epiphany.





No comments:

Post a Comment