The Road, To Surrender

Not sure why, but my pathway home from teaching is slightly different from my pathway over.  In the morning, en route to the campus, I want to cross Xizang Road as early as I can.  If the light permits, I cross in front of the Marriott Hotel.  If it doesn’t, I cross Fengyang Road and do it as soon as I’ve made it to the other side.  Then I’ve a straight shot down the east side of Xizang Road and I can make my final turn eastward at Hangkou Road.

One the way home I similarly seem to want to get across Xizang Road as quickly as I can.  I do the walk up the east side until I get to the crossing at Jiujiang Road.  There is always a crowd.  Often there is one or another unfortunate fellow on a dolly, unable to walk, with a missing limb, or another crippling ailment who goes from person to person, captive their at the light, begging. By the time I cross the road and begin my way down the street there is fifty-fifty chance that some fool will ask me if I want a massage.  I don’t cross here to confront these people nor to avoid them.  They’re on both sides of the People’s Square.  I cross here because it's a habit. 

Today, I crossed there, as I always do, but I was in another world.  The wonderful late Jam tune, “Dreams of Children” came up into the ears.  There was a time when I reckoned this was one of the most beautiful songs in the world and I did what I could, crossing the road, to surrender myself to this remarkable, evocative memory. 

It seems Paul Weller was, (still is?) always striving in his writing, to push metaphors and subdue cliché.  Often it’s the earnest attempts that are most beautiful. “He is sick of struggling so hard.  Says it must be nice to own a factory.”  Sometimes the failure is still charming.  “I want us to be like Peter Pan.  And dreams it seems are weightless as sand. And man is supposedly made of sand.  It seems that man cannot survive at all.”   And sometimes he captures an image provocatively, as he wakes up into the is “modern nightmare”, not unlike the one I’m walking across now, on my way home.   Bruce Foxton’s bass run and now the backwards guitar loop . . .” you will choke on your dreams tonight.”

Wednesday 5/23/18