The Long Highway Pt. 29

Part 29

Hiroko translated

Mitchell talked about when he was a student, studying teaching, which was how we eventually met. In the last semester he had to write a term paper and was late getting started. He'd chosen as his topic the relationship between language and art and asked his adviser if that was all right. Cheerful, she said yes and suggested they set a time to sit down and talk about his proposal with others working on theirs. They could all put together a list of elements that might fit. Mitchell thought, "I don't need to talk about elements that might fit. I have to start writing."

There were only two weeks left. He had that essay to finish and another one for a different class and a final exam to prepare for. He wasn't sure he'd be able to graduate.

He asked the adviser what she thought about him writing in the paper about a foreign language and she agreed it was a good idea. Mitchell explained that looking at a different idiom would give perspective on English. The problem was that he didn't know any other. He'd studied some French in high school but not much. This was before he met me and began trying Japanese, which he soon gave up.

Our talk- mostly his- continued. He brought up an article he's just been asked to write for the college- that college essay of his had reminded him. He said he is thinking of including photographs he's taken, since the theme of this paper too involves art and language and his photo hobby is "a sort of art" for him. He wondered if he should use photos of me, since he's shot a lot of them, at least half of all he's taken of any subject, and he thinks some of them are among his best. But he expressed doubts, thinks they might all be too sexy, said that to his eye even the plain images, ones in which I was fully dressed, were highly erotically charged.

He then went back to talking about his college work in his last term, the pressure he'd felt, fear of failure. He said he felt envious of me- he even looked resentful- because the courses I've taken at the college are only art and English language and there are no essays to write. You have it easy, he said.

He and I went yesterday evening to the movie theater where your films showed when you were here. It was pretty crowded. "This is a cultural nexus," Mitchell said. Walking through the coffee shop lobby we heard loud hacking coughs that continued a while and saw they were from an old Chinese man. He laughed and apologized to the people around him. He thought the coughing was funny.

In the next room, by the ticket seller, Mitchell and I saw a poster for the film showing, a woman's face, broad, plain, freckled, filling the white frame, bigger than life. I didn't know what the image meant, couldn't read the one-word title.

"Pierce," Mitchell said. At first I didn't get it out of context.

"Pierce," he repeated. "You have one." I do, a small semicircular nose ring I wear occasionally, had worn then.

We were talking with some other people about the movie and Mitchell said he didn't want to see it.

The film wasn't a story about body piercings but a visual exploration.

"I don't want to sit through pictures of that for eighty minutes."

How he knew the length of the film I'm not sure.

He added that he preferred not to spend more time waiting in the lobby where that old Chinese man was probably still coughing. There wasn't much ventilation, he said. Mitchell worries about catching one of the respiratory viruses going around now, more than necessary, I think. He's not as young as me but it's mostly people a lot older than him who get serious cases, isn't it?

"But that's art," I pointed to the poster propped on an easel, most of the image white, the model's skin rendered high key also lighter than cream color, and reminded him the movie was meant to change how we see. The pictures of pierces might not be revolting but made interesting, even beautiful.

Your work has sparked my interest in experimental films.

Let's get off the topic of Mitchell. I'm sorry to write about him so much. It's just that he talks a lot and sometimes I feel I don't have enough space to think about anything else.

Today I met a friend who has a new baby, her second. Its face is animated, smiles, responds. She really looked at us, with delight to match ours.

"She's beautiful," I said at the realization. My friend's first child, her son, was born just a year and a half ago and at the start didn't have that vibrant expression, was instead serious, poker-faced. It's amazing how different people can be. You and Mitchell aren't similar, do you think? Yet you're good friends. If you hadn't been his teacher in college, would a friendship have developed between you, I wonder. Of course my feelings for Mitchell and you are not comparable, but they're strong in both cases, yes, in yours too. Did you know?

--

Mitchell can be so insecure, so unsure of himself. Is there a difference between those two words? I think there is. The second leads to the first. If Mitchell believed in himself, he'd feel less doubt about me.

One thing I like is that he's very open about his lapses of confidence. He doesn't hide, pretend to be some kind of big hero man.

Do you? Sometimes I think you do but I like you anyway. Maybe I'd like you less if you didn't.

I get confused about my feelings, my ideas. Is there a difference between those two words? Of course there is.

I like telling you my feelings, ideas too, "bouncing them off you," as Mitchell would say. You're so solid they bounce strongly.