🌸 sight for sore lies

Welcome to track four from buttahbasted, the written album. Check out the intro here. Previous hits include “seduced in condesa”, “salted serenade”, and “catfished by scampi”.

Paid subscribers: I’ll be reaching out soon for your addresses to send you printed copies of my 2023 magazine, Untethered. Digital access is coming this Friday. I have about eight limited edition copies available. Once those run out, paid subscribers will get a physical copy of “buttahbasted” once I figure out Canva and margins and bleeds and all the hassles of printing. Thank you for supporting me.

As a treat to all, here are some in-progress visual concepts for buttahbasted:

some visual concepts i'm toying with

Like all art….the finished work is just the tip of the iceberg. Your support acknowledges the unseen sweat that makes these stories possible. I’m grateful for your support 💛.

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Now, today’s track:

🌸 sight for sore lies

Do you remember the last time one of your senses betrayed you?

Your eyes, those squishy face-eggs¹ lured you down a path that left you lost? One minute you were in control, the next you found yourself fiddling offshore like a rudderless ship in foreign waters. 

Last year, I had one of those moments. Three days into my sabbatical adventure in Barcelona, I joined an Airbnb experience that brought solo travelers together. Picture me, wide-eyed, and buzzing in a global group – a young Colombian couple nomad-ing through Southern Europe, a Jamaican I met the previous day, and a French Arab who told the best drunken stories. 

The bar was deceptively large. When I stepped in, it looked tiny, but as I walked through, it seemed to grow extra branches. Seating areas sprawled out of nowhere. Green velvet couches sprung ontop of dark brown tiles like leaves in a potted plant. The corridor worked like a stem transporting thirsty travellers to their watering holes for more booze. 

Farouk, my French friend stood larger than life. He told stories with such command of physical space and extended use of hyperbole you wondered if they were true. His account of a bare-hands tussle with a wild goat in Nepal sounded a little too Hollywood, but it was hilarious. And when did we ever let the truth get in the way of a good tale? 

After a few drinks, he confided in me. He had a meeting to attend in 9 hours time. OK, so what? Every working millennial has slapped themselves sober to finesse a morning meeting. What’s the fuss? But he confessed this meeting was in Marseille, some three hundred miles away and he didn't have a flight ticket. 

"Oooh, so you're crazy. You should've led with that", I thought to myself. But judging by his unbothered demanour, this was a rehearsed dance. "This is the point of life, no? To feel the rush on the back of your neck", he said without a care in the world.

To purge myself of the cliché, I glanced away from our table towards the back of the bar. My eyes caught a familiar silhouette. Wait…was that Jorge? The bearded bald man I played soccer with earlier that week? The man that helped me defeat the arrogant divas? What was he doing here?

Jorge and I didn't speak enough of the same language to communicate with words. But smugness is a universal enemy — everyone can spot a prick! So we played hard and crushed them. Every soccer player knows the joy of dominating divas on the pitch and making them run in the heat. Pass, pass, pass — then "puta madre" passed in our direction. As they self-destructed, Jorge and I giggled like children at the back of a school bus.

So when I saw him at the bar, I ran off to greet my guy! Maybe we'd toast to the win or I'd get his number so we could play more games together. With all the confidence in the world, I walked down the bar, nudged his shoulder and leaned in for a hug. He opened his body to receive it, but right as our chests were about to become chums, I got a glimpse of his shock. 

His eyes glazed white with apprenshension and in return, I tensed up. But our chests were too close to claw back. Mayday Mayday. We settled for the worst compromise: an awkward half-hearted hug. 

I peeled my arms back in horror. Did I just hug a stranger? The dark-haired girl in the wine leather skirt beside him gave me a quizzical look. "Que paso?", her raised eyebrows showing her concern. He babbled some Spanglish which I interrupted to apologize. I deployed my dependable fake laugh and tried to defuse the situation. Then, sprinted off back to the safety of our table. 

The first few steps of my escape were powered by utter embarrassment. But once I evaded the disaster zone, I burst into laughter. Of course, this would happen to me. First night out in Spain, and instead of an adventure, I harassed a stranger on a date.

But how did this even happen? 

For all of my life, I trusted my eyes without hesitating. Their word was solid as gold. This semi-solid clump of brown in front of me is chocolate — and not that unsavory stuff? OK brothers, I believe you. I’m bringing it into my mouth. Don’t make me regret this, please.

Maybe my eyes sensed I needed to escape Farouk. As much as I think I’m in charge, they draw the bounds of my reality. They call the shots. Heck, maybe Jorge wasn’t even bald. How would I know? Maybe they lied to me for good reason.

Or maybe they tried their best. Eyes are prehistoric technology fighting uphill in a world where the line between fake and real keeps getting blurred. Convincing camouflages can be tough to beat.

Whether or not they lied — whether or not Farouk made his flight or fought that goat, my eyes fed me a story worth telling, and I can’t begrudge that in pursuit of the truth.

1. I learned this lovely expression from the season finale of Succession. Caroline’s character was a warm river of cold humor. After her son injured his eyes, she was so disgusted at the concept of eyes — yes, those human windows into one’s soul — that she expressed her disgust. Revolted, she went: “I don’t like to think of all these blobs of jelly rolling around in your head, ugh, face eggs.”