How does he do it?

Last night, I had a dream that I was in Tokyo, drinking heavily and watching a lot of kids dance to bad reggae.  I've got to give my brain big props for its integrity with my language skills.  Instead of pretending like I could understand the chattering of the cool kids, I simply sat, struggling to recall the language I used to know.  When a Japanese word or phrase surfaced in my surplus memory, I used it.  Tabetai!  Kirei na?  Chodai!  "I want to eat!" I was saying.  "Pretty, huh?"  "Gimme!"

And when someone responded in Japanese, I waited for a translation, because that's what I would need now.  And when I awoke, I wanted to smoke a cigarette more than I wanted to learn Japanese again.

I have a friend, or something like that, who was always willing to take risks that I couldn't fathom.  He smoked pot early and fucked early and had a nervous breakdown well before any of our peer group had even started to comprehend the value of one.  One night, he rearranged my room while I cooked dinner.  I never doubted the superiority of his floor plan since he was the artist and I was just a residual friend, held over from adolescence for reasons that would never bear consideration but weren't necessary in the face of some mutual, molecular bond.  In those early days, the formation of stable molecules trumped other rational factors, I think.

Nowadays, I don't talk with the friend but I think we keep up with each other.  And these days, I'm admiring his decisions, from afar, wishing- with crossed fingers- that I might ask him just how he puts one foot in front of the other to take the life-saving steps that Saint-Exupery says we must take.  I'm not entirely sure why I want his viewpoint on the matter, but it's probably because I imagine that he makes art day in and day out, and to do this, I wonder, does he complete some daily reckoning or does he save that for the end?

I cross my fingers for the same reason that I used to tune out some of the innocence-fouling stories he shared sleepily with me in late, late night phone calls.  Maybe I can't hear it yet.  Or maybe I never wanted to know.  Truly, does anyone need to know that another eighth grader was just that willing while everyone else was watching Halloween?  Maybe I only need to know that life demands that steps must be taken, and maybe I don't need to know how someone else takes the steps.

Maybe, like all things worthwhile in life, it's better to generate my own rambling apocrypha than to rely on the musings of other minds.  That said, I'm comfortable reporting that one foot in front of the other is the way I take my steps.  It's the riskiest damn thing I've ever done.