xtcian

8/10/02 A good djà vu

8/10/02

A good djà vu is hard to come by, but I had one today as I lay in a stranger's bed somewhere east of Easthampton, NY. We came here to the Hamptons because Tessa's film Five Wives is showing at the museum festival celebrating American movies that typify a certain region ("Five Wives," of course, representing Texas). This means staying at a gorgeous house with thoroughly modern architecture, but the second Tessa went for a run, I went for a nap – and was instantly brought back to an afternoon I spent in Kenya when I was thirteen.

Many of you reading this either know about, or have seen works by, Dan Eldon. Dan is famous, unfortunately, for dying the way he did: stoned to death by an angry mob in Mogadishu in 1993. He was a Reuters photographer, and his visionary journals were discovered not long after, becoming the book The Journey is the Destination. But that was still many years away.

Dan was my most consistent friend growing up, even if we didn't see each other for months at a time. His mother Kathy was from Iowa, where we lived, and we followed their family to London, and then Kenya, having awesome kid adventures along the way. We painted murals, dug G.I. Joe caves and played ping-pong until our arms were numb. But on this particular day, I was alone in their gigantic Nairobi house, on vacation, with all adults off doing other things, and Dan and his sister Amy at school. I sat in the love seat in the window and listened to the Beatles' "Love Songs" compilation, and just stared out the window at the beautiful, bizarre trees of their African yard. It was the first moment in my life, after thirteen years of whirlwind neverending "kiddie momentum" that I actually stopped and took stock of my life, and actually noticed the artistic, sad sweep of the tops of the trees. I know it sounds bizarre, but I think it was in that precise moment that I entered puberty.

And today I felt something in the cool breeze of the Hamptons, lying in a bed that is not mine, feeling that out-of-place sensation you get when left at other people's houses as a child, looking up at the tops of the trees sweeping the home stretch of the summer out to sea.

me with Dan Eldon, summertime 1977