I know a place where wild thyme grows...

It was magical to get out of work at 2 pm. As I walked up 59th street, I heard a South American band with panpipes playing in front of the Plaza, by the fountain. My feet were throbbing, really hurting from eight hours of running up and down the stairs of the Ritz-Carlton in high heels, and I knew I had four avenues till the 6 train. I decided to sit down, take my shoes off, and rest in the sun. Complete and utter idleness, as the jaunty haunted music played.

I closed my eyes and felt a gob of childhood rushing to the front of my mind. When I was four and five, my father had a friend called Dario Domingues, an Argentinian musician born in the same town as my dad, who had a popular band that played mostly outdoor events. I was in love with Dario because he was the first man I had ever seen with long hair - long, shiny blue-black smooth hair that he either kept in one huge waist-length braid, or left loose, letting it cling to the back of his shoulders like a shadow. I also found his house fascinating. Flutes, pipes, drums, gourdes filled with sand, cymbals, wind chimes...treasures. In fact, Dario was responsible for the first time I ever felt talented in my life. One day my parents were over at his house, and had brought us kids along. There were other grown-ups there, but they are indistinct blurs in my memory. Sometimes Dario would let me play with his instruments. I was too shy to actually play them in front of everybody, but I loved to hold them and look at the carving and painting on them, and the embroidery and beadwork of the straps.

I remember holding an tiny set of pan-pipes, all by myself, when the other kids were off playing and the grown-ups were drinking shandiies in the kitchen. I raised them to my lips like Dario and blew softly. To my shock and suprise, lovely sounds came out. I think I had had some concept that Dario was just an amazing singer and the pan pipes were a special charm that let him sing with no words. I began to play them, very slowly. It must have been an eeirie tune, because five or six grown up faces appeared in the doorway looking startled.

I froze, sure I was going to be punished, unsure what I had done. Maybe I hadn't been given permission this time to hold the instrument - I don't know. I just remember the sudden wash of fear when the adults arrived. Insead of yelling though, they quietly moved forwards and asked me to play again. I was wary of obeying. Usually, a command performance from me was something for the grownups to laugh at. I'd valiently try to sing the song of the day from school, or do a dance step, and my parents would laugh. they were laughing at the cute ineptitude of any kindergartener's artistic endevour, but I always came away feeling wounded and ashamed.

I learned how to mope early!

but this time it was different. Nobody seemed to want to laugh. I played again, the same slow, high, wavering song. Then faster. And faster. I played and played and the growups stared and listened. They clapped for me. They said that listening from the kitched they thought Dario was playing, but then he came out of the toilet and they knew it couldn't have been him. I glowed incandescent.

If you gave me pan pipes today I wouldn't know the top from the bottom. I haven't turned into a musical genius. But listening to the softly sweating band play their Andes music today brought this all back.

I put my head on my knees and closed my eyes. This music shares with Celtic songs the same sort of dance-hall desperation that dances a jig with tears pouring down its face. There's something grippingly resigned about such music, as if they are simply stating the fact of a grief beyond catharsis - a grief that's become such a part of home and family and existence that its loss would mean the loss of more than pain, and bring its own sorrow. And still, hearing it, you want to smile and run down a hill at full speed.

It was in the shade, and the wind was blowing. I took a picture for some tourists and fed my lunch to a carriage horse, still intent of doing nothing and carrying my shoes in my hand for as long as I could get away with it. The band stopped playing and pulled bottles of gatorade from beneath their cotton ponchos.

I felt a little frightened. I really want to keep this job. I really want some security. My life so far has been marked by small pockets of deep intensity. I seem to be destined to come into people's lives for a short moment with all my might, burn brightly, and then move on. Like so many of my talents - I shock and amaze at the age of 4 with my ability to improvise - I never learned how to play a musical instrument after that. I was a gifted dancer who made it into the National School of Ballet, but then I had a growth spurt in my first two months and couldn't make it. I was cast as the lead in an important show when I had no resume, just on the strength of my audition - and then was fired before the show went up. I got married to the first man I ever kissed - and then ran away 6 months later. So many of my friendships since I've gotten to NYC have gone the same way - 100 to 0 in sixty seconds flat. I told Andrew once that I'm scared I may be "all dazzle" - just some sort of emotional firework show for people who need to be shaken up a little, and then, after the dazzle, just so much smoke that will slowly but surely clear.

I'm so glad I am staying in New York. I need to stay put for once, and let something stick.


"My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!"
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay