It is quite possible, maybe even nearly guaranteed, that I will not be there on your final day. That is, in the final moment that defines that day. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but if I did it would just be untrue.
I also wish it didn’t have to be so simple. I wish I didn’t have to be so wrapped up in myself just like everyone else, and that I could summon the super-powers I always dreamt of one day having, so that I could be in two places at once after all; so that I could be as much the magic to you, as you’ve been to me over the course of so many days.
I am only human, however. A being bound by two hands and two feet, with just one heart and mind connecting each of these extensions of the body. Even if in my own mind I can fly, the rest of the time I’m pulled to the earth by gravity like every other one of the planet’s organisms.
What’s more, even if I could actually fly through time and space, the truth is that I would still have to leave one part of myself to get to you on the other side. This I could not do.
Last night, at the peak of dawn there was a tremor through the earth. I could not fly and get away. Nor could you. Instead we both had no choice but to bear the weight and worry of the tumble that marked the earth’s transformation, a transformation all but guaranteed to continue indefinitely, or at least, long past either one of us.
We had to be somewhat brave, Los Angeles. For a moment each of us faced the specter of being taken from one another and the impending doom thereof. Yet there we were. We made it through the strenuous trek. Now, we continue with our own transformation through the times. We are living, breathing organisms too, after all, each of us with whole worlds to fill out regardless of a tremor or two.
That said, there will also be a time when one of us cannot make it. On that day, even with all the bravery in the universe coursing through our veins, we will still be broken through. A day when the sky will be blotted out by an endless sense of abandon. A day when we’ll be left to course through the dark of the night as new, less certain structures. Broken structures.
That brokenness is also likely to extend through the course of more than just one night. It may even take a lifetime to adapt to a world without one another, but we will once again transform through this. It is our destiny to expand into the universe through each of the events that happen to us, and through those we happen to. If it were not for the same reason, I could not write this note to you today, nor any of the notes we’ve shared. And even if the notes one day vanish, I’ve got a feeling they could only disappear to take time and space in another form, too.
Naturally, there will only be one Los Angeles over the course of time and space, just as there will be only one JIMBO TIMES to express so uncompromisingly such a fervent dedication to Los Angeles.
But before it’s all a memory, with what time and space is still left, I want to express my gratitude for everything we’ve been able to form together.
You have made me, Los Angeles, and I can only hope in some way I’ve made you too.
As such, when the time comes to remake ourselves, even beyond one another, no matter if I can’t be there to say goodbye, I trust each of us will still remake ourselves well.
Indeed, the pueblos depend on it.
J.T.