Eclectic Lesson

Sunday Blues | March 29, 2010

I like coming here on holiday.
This is the house where I grew up.
It’s not huge, but we’ve got a backyard.

This weather differs greatly from the one back there.
We wear sandals in here, it gets so warm in the summer.
But I don’t mind. This is the place I know so well.
When I was a kid, I searched every corner of this house.
I was looking for some treasure.
And I came to find some stuff worth keeping.
But I’ve always suspected it still holds plenty of secrets.

Two years ago, it releaved one of its most well-kept ones.
Later I came to think I may have already known it from a long time.

Whenever I’m here, my dad picks us up and we visit our grandparents’ house.
This house keeps its secrets too.
It’s bigger, older and colder.
But it’s always been like a museum for us.
We’ve never felt like a part of that family, we just go to visit.

So we returned, like we always did.
Always at the same time, ’round six-thirty.
The time when sundays lose their color.
They remind us the week is over.

We were standing on the sidewalk, waving our goodbyes, and we heard him.
It was an old man playing the saxophone.
He was a street musician.
He wore clothes reminiscent of a few decades ago.
We heard him but paid no interest to him.
His notes failed to move us then.

Dad left, but I stayed outdoors, waiting for the saxophonist to come by.
I had spare change in my pockets, I was willing to give it all to him.
But he never walked by our house.
He turned around the corner.
His music just drifted by, and I never followed him.

So I went inside, crying in my mind.
Frustrated by the fact that life declined us both a chance.
A chance to be happy doing what we wanted to do.
And I thought how I couldn’t meddle with life’s choices.
It would’ve been like cheating, according to my own rules.
“You have to make the most with the cards life’s dealt you”.

And I wondered how many times before I’ve stood helpless before life.
Not moving, not cheating, not attempting anything.
Hoping the next hand would be better.

And I felt small and impotent.

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