| |
Maiden Voyage
February 21st 2008
When I first aquired 'luniere' at the beginning of 2007 I wasn't sure what the site would be used for... The name luniere is primarily a new top hat for films previously under the borgasm umbrella and for new films currently in development. The website would serve as a launching platform for these films but I also wanted to use it as hub for the other creative people I find myself surrounded by more and more. After speaking to my lovely friend Emma about my new website that had nothing on it she was very excited about writing a piece for it's maiden voyage and got to work with a mind full of candle lit moons... Thus... It was decided that the 'Book of Small Moons' would open its pages to the world as a place to present thoughts on the light of the night who each of us has our own small yet unique perspective of... The Moon.
Aldrin's wristwatch, an Omega Speedmaster Professional, was the first watch on the moon. It was stolen from his personal effects en route to the Smithsonian and has never been recovered.
Missing. Watch. Found. Written by Emma J Lannie
The watch holds itself against my skin. There's little more than a millimetre between me and it. It keeps cold even in the searing Summer. And when Winter paints this town white, it keeps its chilly constant, invents the need for sleeves pulled long, gloves pulled high. This is a watch that has seen me through everything. Through thick and thin, tall and short, near and far, smart and dumb, sober and drunk. More of the drunk than is probably good for me. Or it. But it's stuck around, clinging to my wrist like honeysuckle. Or mistletoe.
I didn't always have this watch. There were others. Before this one. Their leather buckled tightly, or their metal clammy and frictional. But after this watch, all others ceased to exist for me. This is the watch. The only watch. And I can't tell a soul why.
Nora is waiting for me by the pool. We swim in the dark and let the moon draw silver squiggles across our bodies. The watch stays on. It's best when even the house lights are switched off. Then the stars tear open the seams of the night, winking at us. And we swim. And we swim. And we chatter like starlings about the big things: life; the universe; peace and war. We talk about the little things, too, in whispers barely audible against the hum of the heaters and the background noise of the stars being born. How it feels when my hand brushes hers. Why coffee is better than tea. Where we had our first kiss. What kind of wax they use on fruit to make it so shiny. All these words spill out into the evening air and hover between us. I marvel at the shape of them, the feel of them inside my mouth. I am saying all the right things. She is as in love with me as I am her. This night is unfolding into the perfection I dreamed.
Not so long ago, I was all alone. Nora wasn't in my life. I would walk for miles on nights like this, following empty roads just to be outside, just to have some kind of purpose, however tenuous. I would tell myself it would help me think. Peripatetic, I'm sure that's the word. Old Aristotle did it. Walked about. Thought. So I did the same, kept on putting one foot in front of the other, pacing out my life in miles and kilometres, blisters and ideas. There were a million things I did wrong. I can't even remember all of them. They're in my head, though, in the back, and every once in a while I'll tune into another one, like it's a song on an old radio station and I've only just passed through that particular frequency. I know I was selfish. I know I was too caught up in the sound of my own voice, or the dramas of my days. I always put myself first. At the time, I kidded myself that I was perfect, that I was full of chivalry and care. It's only now, after all that's happened, that I can admit I wasn't.
Nora swims towards me. She is smiling, and the sight of her like this splinters my heart into a thousand tiny fragments, sends them dancing through my veins, before her hand on my shoulder quells them once again, lets them rest and reshape themselves. I am a better man now. My heart is bigger and without deformities. Its four chambers are places only she occupies now, places she fills with laughter and fireflies, moonlight and stars. And even when I think that my heart is too full of her, that it is about to burst, there is always a little more space for her to grow into, to fill. She kisses me, and as she does so, she lets her toes rest on mine. We dance like this, in the water, under the moon, until our skin is nothing but wrinkles.
The first time we were in this place together I was years from where I am now. Not hundreds, but a few. And yet. Things seem so unchanged. Nora sees me as I am now, but for her, I will always be who I was then. On this night, at least. When she dances with me, under this sweet, low moon, I know what's in her heart, and it never ceases to fill me with wonder. Silver, we hold this embrace, this slow jive and we hold our breath: she thinks we will be like this forever. And in the moment, in the seconds where I'm so in awe of her that I forget to breathe out, breathe in again, I think it too. And I allow myself that. My brief escape from what I know.
My wrist, my watch is against Nora's skin. Even underwater, this watch never misses a beat, a tick-tock. Someone once said that clocks are not time, that they can only ever measure time, tell us about it. But this one is different. Whether I willed it to be so, or whether, by its own design it sets itself apart, I do not know. I've long since stopped questioning the how and the why.
It was this night that laid itself out in all its beauty. It etched itself into my memory. Just me and Nora, still new to one another. And the pregnant moon, watching over everything. Our skin pale and glowing. Our bodies close and wet. Songs in our heads as we let time fall away into nothingness.
After this night, there were others. Other fine evenings. Lots of them. We learned each others' bodies, traced maps across skin that we'd hold in the still places of our hearts for a lifetime. But other nights followed. Nights when I'd leave her to wait up, lonely, while I spent myself in other worlds. Nights of bellowing and nights of silence. Nights of slammed doors and of broken words, spat across rooms too small to hold us both.
This single night held all the possibilities for us. We were unwritten. Returning to this night and starting again, only this time doing it right, that was my plan. Once I knew what this watch could do, that became my life's only objective. And who ever gets the chance to start afresh, to go back and correct all the lousy, selfish mistakes they made. I really felt luck was shining down on me. I was gonna make good on everything. Let us become all that we'd glimpsed under that moon. But ideas have a funny way of unravelling: I wasn't to get my forever.
Just one night. Then back to being completely alone, having destroyed the one thing that ever meant a thing to me. One night. And I've relived it over and over and over again. Night after night after night. I hold her here, us here, in this constant loop. We will never go forwards into the heartbreak future I carved out first time round. But we will never go forwards, full stop. No clean slate. No blank page. I've grown to accept this. What more can I do. My watch against Nora's skin charges this evening forward, second after baited second. Soon the night will be coming to an end, and I will get dressed and Nora will go inside to the warm rooms of her house. I will make my way home, full of everything anyone ever felt and more. All highs and lows, bangs and crashes, heart fit-to-bursting and emptiness worse than any hunger. This night is such a wonderful, beautiful night. And I'll sleep tomorrow's light away until I'm able to repeat it all over again. |
|
