Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita
Vladimir Nabakov, Lolita 1955
pilfered from nabakov, inspired by melora, written by sugar power
Melora, my lady of fire-storm, the light of my loins. My skin, my swirl. Me-lo-ra: "the tip of the tongue" taking a plunge down the palate to greet me. Me. Lo. Ra. Hello Rosebud. Welcome back into my world.
She is just plain Mel, when she is driving. She stands five foot one in socks riddled with insect patterns, precocious as ever as we arrive at the chateau in France. She is Melo, when we are waiting for our back stage passes. And she is Ms. Koepke on her credit card which gets us, just about, everywhere en Route.
And then she is Melora, to me, dancing to the arcade fire in the pouring rain and thunder, flitting about danger, like school-girls, like an inside joke, just outside of Barcelona.
Melora. Try it. It feels so good to say it.
Whenever you are with her it feels so very NOW. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Not this afternoon or this evening, you lose track of time and everything else. In fact everything is so just very, very, very NOW.
So you might be wondering how this story started? Well, I cannot tell you all of it of course. It would be tasteless, take forever, and we do not kiss and tell now do we? Nor do we divulge our ages, though here is a hint…we have been friends for some 18 years. Good Christ.
NOW. It is mid-summer. It is Barcelona. I am working on an illustration and I receive an email from a much over-worked and much under-slept but very happy, determined and ever so sexy journalist I had not heard from in seven years. The subject line is, of course, the familiar: "What are you doing tomorrow?". The message is: I am covering the arcade fire for a piece in EnRoute's in-flight magazine you wanna tag along? My response…SHIT YES!
So here she is…just hours later. My beauty, Melora. Overburdened, overwhelmed and just as gorgeous as ever brimming with an energy known only by the gods. She arrives in the only way Melora can. After 5 days without proper sleep in a rented car she has just retrieved from being towed within her first hour of arriving in Barcelona. My goddess. Descending upon us in a whirlwind of style and haphazard grace. On the edge of renegade, teetering always on genius. A bright light shining on how to live exactly. And that, for Melora, is always doing it large.
Devi, with all her arms.
Not only has Melora arrived after getting her rental car towed within minutes after renting it, but for the first time since I have been living in Barcelona she has dragged along a crazy thunder storm the likes of which have never been seen. At least not this summer. And she has ridden in on it. Or summoned it. Or perhaps it follows her everywhere she goes. Who knows? A fire trail is not so hard to imagine from this electric girl. Ruben's muse ( and not so secretly mine ).
So we have now set off for our concert in France. Not a long trip. Just Barcelona two hours or so to France. Romantic yes. A map, no, not truly, to speak of. Just a vague idea of our destination: someplace on the naughty coast of France. Meow.
Someplace wet, fecund, thrilled with lightening and this doesn't even begin to describe the band.
Now Melora is driving, smoking cigarettes, checking her iphone, with the rental car consistently remaining in, at the very least, two lanes at once the whole way. It is a beauty to behold.
She is thirteen places at once. I swear. Go figure. I struggle to remain in one.
We finally arrive at the concert to nothing we could have ever imagined although I should have anticipated this.
The entrance box is closed. It is after midnight and our prestigious red carpet back stage passes scenario has been momentarily suspended.
We stand like waifs in the rain. Getting wetter.
Finally it gets the best of me and I revert to my teenage years and sneak us in. Which isn't too hard
considering everyone is running for shelter from the storm.
Melora has just put on fresh red and shiny lipstick new as a candy apple and given me such a wink in the pouring rain I will
have great difficulty not retaining the memory f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Now we are two hussies in wet skirts. Umbrella-less, dressed to the nines, and in the game again.
This time, finally, on the right side of the fence. And the band is awesome. ( Since we are teenagers again ).
The chateau itself is tripped out in purple lights. The french boys are flirty, tipsy, and very pretty as an added delight.
We trade pink little coins for yellow curry and beer that soon fills with rainwater.
We have on only sandles in the sticky mud and our dresses are becoming rapidly more transparent to our despair
( not really ). Everything feels good now.
Red lights engorge the stage and the arcade fire roars that pretty soul searing roar that only great musicians can create.
It is other-worldly and innately good. Plain and simply. Good.
This is the moment, I get that feeling that this is that moment. That moment that lingers long after, that you cannot
ever re-create or forget. That lovely moment of unfettered happiness. Nothing is spilled. Just joy.
Later, on the way home we are laughing, pulling rabbits from a hat, smoking, chatting,
trying to read an iphone map and doing origami all at once. I swear. Okay, I might of exaggerated
about the map.
A woman like Melora, only comes into your life once. And you must grab her. Not forever but for the moment
on the red carpet and in the rain. The mystery and the hysteria that comes with it, reminding yourself of only one
great thing: LIFE itself.
The beauty of not knowing and being so caught up in trying to know is you don't even realize you miss out on
what just being feels like. And it is good.
so is the arcade fire
