Sunday, January 23, 2005

Pressure On My Pectorals/I must Release

Yesterday on my break at work I turned on C-SPAN, the only channel worth watching, and caught an arts program. There was a solo violinist playing his guts out in a symphony hall. The expressions he wore on his face while playing were so different than the expressions on my face while working. There is something horribly wrong with guest comment cards placed in rooms, with taking away employee's holiday pay and continental breakfast privileges in order to save the upper management and owner money. The expression on that man's face, his body movements, he was on a different level. One in which I am sad to say, I have never felt, except maybe once while painting.

Yesterday at work, on that same break I turned off the TV and looked out the third story window. A flock of seagulls was gathered in the parking lot. A guest had left a bag of bread rolls, so I opened the window and fed the birds for the rest of my lunch break. I noticed something similar in those birds that I observe in my own community, nothing that hasn't already been written about but interesting to me none the less. The loud fat birds were in the front row bullying the bread away from the smaller birds. Wanting to be fair, I threw the bread at the smaller birds in the back. Poor quite birds. They don't even try to eat the bread thrown their way, they just wait with growling stomachs, while the big birds fly in and eat up their meal. Class systems amongst birds. Pecking orders.

I wonder am I one of the birds in the back? Am I one of the fat, white, well fed, birds in the front? I am not really sure. I guess I am one of the ones on the side, not wanting to eat the bread crumbs thrown out of a third story window. Not wanting money, and marriage, and picket fences, and vacations to Europe. There has to be something more to life than working our way up the pecking order. I want something more than bread crumbs, I want people to be as moved by life as that violinist was by his music.

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