filling in the missing pieces, caulking up the cracks

Everything I want to say to you and everything I won’t is all tangled up underneath my skin, sometimes tugging to get out sometimes fighting to stay in, clinging to my bones and tangling between my teeth, torn up and tied together and melodramatic as all hell but that’s what I get for reading too many crappy romances and I know life is never like the stories but knowing and feeling are two different things and at least in the stories everything gets worked out in the end, you know that it is going to end and probably how but real life doesn’t work like that when you’re living the story yourself you’re the one feeling everything and you’re that character that the whole audience is screaming at mentally get a fucking clue already but locked behind the fourth wall you have no idea, you’re just stumbling around adrift amidst staggering heaps of dramatic irony and coincidence and comedy and more than a little tragedy because this is life, after all.

You switch from first person to second back to first when you’re talking to yourself, monologuing out your inconsequential pain because who are you, really? Who am I? We are no less than the children of the universe, the trees and the stars, sure, but we are also no more – a mayfly is the child of the universe, a midge, a tiny speck on your windshield with no mouth or digestive system, no purpose except to make more of itself and rise to its highest level of maturity only to dance helplessly on the breeze, drifting mindlessly toward the light before becoming part of something else’s snack in its last and only night on earth. You and I are the mayflies, the midges, and the world is the snapping turtle the seagull the bat the fish mouthing at the air missed that one got another one oh well bite again got it and snapping us up only to move on to our neighbors, our wives, our husbands and fathers and sisters and grand-uncles because the world swallows everyone sooner or later and all we have left is whatever spawn we managed to dump into the creek before we set out on our first and only flight.

I want to tell you that I miss you and I hate you and I want to write poetry for you and before you and after you but you’re not really the type to inspire poetry or write it and I remember when you told me you were going to try to write a poem in Spanish for me, my favorite language and one I speak and read and write much better than you but that was before I knew what you tasted like, how your breath squeaks when you’re falling asleep, what your freckles look like from six inches away without my glasses or yours and how your hand fits against the curve of my hip and your warmth on cold nights and the one time I woke up next to you on the day we said goodbye for the next month and a half and when I saw you again it just wasn’t the same, the ache of wanting to wake up next to you had faded and these days I find myself forgetting what your voice sounds like, I have to look at your pictures to remember every part of your face at once, I can pretend you imagine you conjure you but you’re a faded watercolor compared to how the acrylic and oil mural of you used to shine across the insides of my eyelids in greens and blues and reds.

These days I find myself half-hoping I’d just wished you so I don’t have to figure out how to talk to you again. It was easier before we said those words, before I told you how I felt, sick of keeping it inside never getting the right moment to say it (swinging me around in my room, carpet soft under our feet as you boosted me taller even than you and it was too early, too soon so I just kissed you, half-laughing and half-scolding but we both knew I didn’t mean it when I giggled put me down then tickling each other on your couch, just laying there for hours and ignoring the movie we said we’d watch, feeling your weight on mine and resting my head on folded arms across your chest, feeling your breath in my hair as we both dozed before your roommate came home) and not sure if you felt the same, not wanting to put you on the spot the way he did to me but it had been three months not two weeks surely if this wasn’t what I’d been looking for then it was close enough but I think I scared you off, it was easier before those three words that you returned to me before you left but quickly, hastily, maybe just because it was easier than saying no not yet like I had once upon a time but I lied to him I never said it because I never would have meant it and I meant it when I said those words to you but I don’t know if you spoke the truth to me in return.

It was easier even before that, when we hadn’t said anything and were still dancing around each other and you texted me when I woke up and I said good night :) every night before I closed my eyes and you called me your Spanish rose and my heart melted because you meant it when you called me beautiful and you knew me and I knew you and it was new and strange and wonderful because this, now, finally, this was what I had been missing, this was what we hadn’t had before and I wanted more, wanted everything you could give to me and that I could give to you. Those first weeks were wonderful but I was afraid, I had something now that I didn’t want to spoil, something I actually cared about unlike before and I was too careful, too cautious, too afraid of upsetting something between us between my friends and yours that could have taken far more of a beating than I thought I could put it through. And so I was cautious and busy and stressed and overworked and your couch was a haven where I could just sit for a while and be, not do anything but feel your arm around me, away from my empty room and not too uncomfortable with your roommate and there was the feeling of not-so-easy-as-before but those last few days were magic and we always found ourselves some time, not really talking about it because neither of us wanted to say goodbye before we had to.

We made no promises. Maybe we should have, maybe then I wouldn’t be so worried when it’s been days since I’ve read a word from you, weeks since I’ve heard your voice, months since I’ve felt your breath on the back of my neck and your arm around me as you pulled me closer to your chest. Maybe It’s nothing. Maybe it’s everything. All I know is what I don’t know anymore and if it’s your fault or mine or maybe nobody’s and all I wish is that things could be as they were before but the wheel turns and the mayflies dance and we are eaten, my love, we are eaten by the world bit by bit by bit and maybe you are the part of me that is taken in this bite and maybe I am the part of you that you wish to give away, but all I want to do is dance with you for whatever time is left before you are blown away by the drifting winds.

All I want to do is dance with you. Just once. 

the pretentiousness of success

Embroiled in a discourse about the changing role of intellectualism in society and how language is changing to meet cultural expectations and how religion contributes (or has no effect on) the growing anti-intellectualism of American culture, the "dumbing down" of society to fit the lowest common denominator, I had a thought that was not new to me. If I had had time to express it (sadly, we were on a clock) I doubt it would have been a new point to any of my discussion partners either. Nonetheless, I think it a thought well worth having, a question worth repeating, something worth wondering: Have we, in American culture, become apologetic for our own successes? We live in a culture of almost forced homogeneity, wishing not to stand out lest we draw the scrutiny of our peers. We wish to be just like everyone else, no one less than any other person but also no one higher. We seek to hold everyone up to the same standard but fear to surpass that standard, knowing that others cannot and that our actions hold us up above the rest.

If we merely wish to succeed and, indeed, bring others up to our higher level, then where does this presumption of pretentiousness come into play? So often we say that those who succeed cannot be elitist and smug about their successes, and so efface ourselves when it comes to our own triumphs for fear of being seen as pretentious. But would others truly see us in such a way? I know I rarely look at someone who has achieved greatness and write off their successes as presumptuousness, feeling like they are looking down on me for not having achieved as much as they. Rather I admire them and wish to be more like them, feeling like they would encourage such ambitions--raising the bar rather than lowering it, bringing others up to their level rather than needing to bring themselves down to relate to the poor laity below.

Are we so afraid of others' opinions of us that we defend ourselves against this imagined danger of seeming pretentiousness? Are we really that self-conscious, that we apologize for our achievements because others cannot achieve the same, that we attempt to make our successes seem to matter less just because some others have failed and we don't want to make them feel bad? How is that helpful, how does that help others achieve success when we say, oh, my achievements aren't that great, don't worry, I don't want to seem like I'm better than you because we really are just the same even though you still have some ways to go before you can achieve on my level.

There is nothing wrong with being good at things. Nothing. At. All.

And yet we almost refuse to acknowledge that there are different kinds of people in the world and that they are all good at different things, that no one will ever be good at everything and just because you fail sometimes doesn't mean you won't achieve in other ways. This idea that those who are good at something must work not to appear elitist and pretentious isn't necessarily the fault of those viewing them; this perception travels some from the performers of this act as well.

What will it take for people to stand up and simply, purely, be proud of their good work? One can be humble without being self-effacing; while vanity is certainly not an attractive trait, one can be proud of one's accomplishments without boasting about them. Sometimes all it takes it the thought of "I did good" to truly brighten someone's outlook on life. Maybe next time we accuse someone of being pretentious, or try to head off accusations of our own elitism with a preemptive apology, we should consider the question of whether our audience in fact believes this of us--or whether we believe it of ourselves. Are we raising the bar and encouraging others to jump over it? Or are we lowering the bar by laying on it and allowing others to step on us as they cross over?

And is there something to the fact that, while reading over these last few sentences, I laughed to myself and internally wondered, Well, I wonder if I'm being pretentious enough?

the spoken and the written word

I have this burning urge to talk sometimes, to write, to get my words out of my head and give them a life of their own in this world, however fleeting that life may be. Whether I speak or write is immaterial; it is the act of expression that relieves the pressure within me, that quells the burning patterns of my thoughts into something resembling coherency. There is something to the act of expressing oneself that clarifies thoughts into words and salient ideas, that allows things to settle together into, if not a coherent whole, something that is certainly better than the churning mass of conflicting ideas and opinions and experiences that constantly swirls around in our heads. 

Oddly enough, the form of expression seems not to matter. I have calmed myself down with impassioned, discursive, near-incoherent rants to myself as I pace the privacy of my room as much and as often as I have written or typed, frantically trying to make my fingers match the frantic pace of my internal discourse. I'm doing it now, in fact. The urge to express, regardless of audience or reception or even meaningful subject matter or content, simply consumes me and I don't care if anyone is listening to me because I am listening to me, it doesn't matter if anyone else is hearing my words because I am hearing my words and in listening to myself I get a better idea of what I am thinking and sometimes even why I am thinking it. 

However. If I want to produce something meant for others' consumption, it often takes the form of speech more easily than writing. It is a simple fact that I (and most other people) can speak more quickly and more easily than writing or typing, and that words flow more easily when spoken than when written down. It is also true that it is easier to stay on track and make clear transitions to another subject when writing; when speaking, it can be difficult to organize your thoughts in the frenzy of expressing them so quickly. What my ideal form of communication would be, then, is a combination of speech and writing--a form that allows communication to be fast, facile, and flowing while at the same time ordering it and organizing it to be accessible to an audience. 

Let me explain. There exists this software from Nuance called Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows a computer to record your voice speaking and translate those words into text--say, a document on a word processor. After having recorded the organic expression of your original fountain of words, that document can then be edited for clarity and flow of ideas that make it more accessible and more organized. Speech recognition software (not just Dragon, for I am sure there are many other such programs out there) used in this manner provides a fascinating combination of the pure creativity of speaking and the self-aware discourse of writing in a way that, to me, makes it almost the ideal form of language expression. 

...which is why I'm getting it for Christmas. 

In the meantime, however, I am limited to the traditional forms of pen and paper or a computer keyboard to express my ideas to myself and others; speaking, whether it is a monologue to a darkened room or a comment made to a crowd of thousands (the latter hasn't happened to me yet), is too much of a transient medium to truly hold an idea down. There stands a kind of paradox between speaking and recording; in order for something to be expressed, it often first spoken, but in order for it to be truly remembered, it must be written down. The limitations of each of these mediums complement each other in a way that allows them to be combined, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. There still exist gaps between expression and understanding that language, which is limited in and of itself, will never fully transcend. But if we can express something to ourselves, then we can understand our own thoughts and in turn extend that expression and comprehension to others, let them see for just a moment through our eyes. 

At the moment, though, all I can think of is how much sooner I would have arrived at a stopping point had I been speaking this. Maybe I need a voice recorder until my Dragon arrives... Though transcription is such a hassle. And that creates an entirely different discourse that I might expand upon another day.