I was unable to function for quite a while after. I could not read a word. Could not pick up a pen. Could barely speak. I had to go sit in a rocking chair and just...just try to be as careful as I could not to move too quickly so I didn't break the spell.
Erin had just finished reading a story to me written by a friend of ours. I've never met this young man in person. I don't even remember when we met or which of my blogs it was through but we've been connected on line for quite a while now. He accomodates me, confined to the English language as I am, and when he can't, as with his stories and poetry, he recruits Erin to translate for me. In between times, he promises me he is searchng for the perfect posole for my someday trip to Mexico and I tell him when the snow falls in Chicago and promise him we will build snowmen together when he visits me.
I knew he was a poet, both with his words and his camera. He is sensitive to life. But I was not prepared for the story Erin read to me. It isn't mine to share, though the minute there is an English translation I can print with his permission, I surely will, but what I can share is what his writing did for me.
Eric created time.
I think that is the only way I can say it. His story is entitled The Watchmaker, but a title doesn't create an experience, a visceral experience. And even though Erin was translating the story as she read it, with no chance to massage the English to match his words, I was still mesmerized. There were moments when I didn't want to breathe because I knew a breath would cause a ripple and the watchmaker's work could be lost. I could feel the air around him. I could see the color of the moonlight coming through the window. I was transfixed by the vignettes Eric's images created in my mind's eye.
I've read much in my life but rarely have I been affected like that.
(It also gave me an appreciation for the spoken word...oh for the golden age of radio...)
It was a surrealist dream, magical and so carefully detailed. And that is where time comes in. Each detail, added in turn, made the scene more delicate.
It takes an artist to be able to do that.
So often words weigh things down, encumber scenes with more detail than the reader needs. But Eric just sprinkled details like fairy dust over such a magical scene that even time had to pause so as not to disturb the image.
When I came to, and Erin and I could both speak again, she pointed out that we actually KNOW Eric. I'm his Facebook friend, for crying out loud. He posted this story on Facebook.
I'm friends with a young Gabriel Garcia Marquez, tagging me in his FB notes.
Talk about surreal.
And while I hope he realizes that his work is far too precious to be relegated to FB Note status, I'm glad that at least that story made it through to me because I had no idea how deep his talent goes and now I got to peek over the side of the well. Drop a stone in it and you may be waiting a long time to hear that splash.
And I'm not worried about jinxing him with my words, or creating too much hype because I know that this was not talent from the head. He didn't force this to happen. Maybe I shouldn't even call it a talent because there is something beyond talent. He listened. He listened to the image he was creating. That watchmaker was there. Eric was the channel that revealed him. Of course, sometimes Eric is going to write and think and create things and some will be astounding and some will be so-so. Of course. I didn't say he was super human. But his sensitivity to life...that is his gift. And when he can translate a little of that for us...it's magic.
And that brings me to Di, who I also know, but have not yet met (and I'm not sure how and when that all got started except that there was an ingredient called Erin involved).
And as I was catching up on her blog I read this.
I stopped everything to read that sentence a few more times and then I came here to share it with you.
I shared a Di Mackey quote, not as a friend's quote, or part of a conversation she and I had but as I would share a quote from Mary Oliver, or Ram Dass, or Bill Evans.
I shared it as wise words from an artist.
Now, we can go on and on about whether one is better than another or what kinds of status demarcations I have in my hopelessly stratified brain. I don't really care about that.
Nor do I care about whether the quote was as meaningful to you as it was to me. I am wired to respond intensely to vignettes and Eric and Di do vignettes very well so the resonance I feel with them is quite high.
But what made me leap up and write the title of this post is that I am looking around me and seeing myself standing right in the very same room (virtual though it may be) with friends who have serious talent. Like "I am now quoting you" kind of talent. Like "I could not shake that story for several hours" kind of talent.
It can't tell you what joy it gives me to see talent come into its own and to actually count these people among my friends...it's just cool. Awesome. Inspiring. Tickling. Just fun.
Sometimes the people with the most to offer you are right in your own back yard. How often do we forget that?
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