“Quand on a pas d’imagination, mourir c’est peu de chose, quand on en a, mourir c’est trop”- Céline in Voyage au bout de la Nuit
Instinct vs. Instance
Back on a cold evening in October, I was kicking down Market Street toward the Embarcadero w/Mills & Abby, on our way up the piers to Fisherman’s Wharf because I wanted them to experience the wonderful Musée Mécanique. We hadn’t committed to the plan for long when I saw the ugly facade of the Hyatt Regency across the street & decided we must first sneak in & see the unexpectedly spectacular interior - the reversed pyramid open heart of a concrete bunker w/streamers the size of soccer fields hanging like Spanish moss & exposed elevator shafts lifting & dropping glass pods, & this interesting little fountain spilling over its edges just enough to create a thin film of falling water that sort of resembles a fabric from across the floor. Ever since I’d walked into the hotel on a whim long ago, I’d felt compelled to stop in again every time I walk by, which is often. So we went inside, Abby & I first while Mills watched over their bikes, & then vice versa. The short diversion was soon over, nice & worthwhile but not a thing you dwell on. Afterward we went on to a memorable run through the antique arcade on the wharf &, ultimately, off into our own lives like before.
Last week, an 18-month-old boy went inside the same hotel with his mother, twin sister & nanny. They were not guests of the hotel. Like us, they went inside to see the interior. Like me, that little boy must have been moved by the vastness of the room & the strange little fountain. He crawled off, unnoticed, to the trough, where the water falls like fabric. Only a few minutes later he was found unconscious in the water, already halfway back to wherever you arrive from on that first morning. He died in the hospital.
I’ve thought about that little boy every day since… see, his instincts were right on: curiosity is a measure of life… of the fire in your chest & the dynamite of mind. He was young, he was helpless, but he was not wrong. I’ve replayed all the times I’ve stood there in his place staring up in childlike wonder at all the stupid decorations & that dumb little fountain, & then stumbled off toward evenings w/good people like Mills & Abby or even just a nap on the couch w/a view of the sky. & I’m caught up & destroyed that these two worlds can both exist in the same place at the same time.
