Monday, August 27, 2012

It is a Sunday, and I wanted to find my disjointed thoughts in front of me. For me.

There was an old wicker bird cage, canary yellow, that sat on some unnecessary piece of furniture in a lovely, but unnecessary room we fittingly dubbed the "Sun room".   A dusty, pretty stage for moments to play on.  Cast by my mother, directed by my father, written by whatever.  The cage was fragile and curious and never held a bird.  The room itself was fragile, curious, and could never hold the sun.  But, ah, how they held us.  Transfixed our eyes with their shapes and the way the light lavishly slid across it all--so convincing they had a purpose, a necessity, and we were convinced.  And we are still transfixed.

Time is intricate, right?  Well, she has the ability to be.  She is so natural at trickery.  She is lulling, she is comforting, she is terrifying.  Time is debatable but fixed.  She is a piece of art nailed to a white-washed wall, open to all interpretations but solid in her own state.  So really, she is everything and nothing, so, everything.   She is as much or as little of a necessity as the wicker canary cage and the Sun-room.  Time is a stage, and we can chose to have a hand in her performance, or we can watch, as she dances around us.  

At this point in Time, I know less about life then I ever have.  I know almost nothing about what things are.  Things like time, reality, friends, love, responsibility, loneliness, fears, strength, courage, emotions, sex, pain, elation, family...nothing about what these things are.  Of course, I constantly use analogies for all of them, and usually discuss them with some sort of well-shaped opinion, but that is in convenience  for everyday conversation.  I've known life, at one point.  Then I learned a few things, and now,  I'm thinking that all of life is no different then myself in that things constantly change, every moment.  So, oh!  Oh, oh look, there's that--I know change pretty well.  But I do not wish to know life, fully.  Not now.  That seems limiting.  What would I have left to discover?  To know nothing is so incredibly interesting to me.  Fascinating.  I strive to be fascinated with everything.

From now on, what I say I know, I know I do not know fully: I know enough to understand.  To know is beyond us, but to understand seems incredibly human.  To know just enough that we can relate to one another, to the point of knowing each other.  

I wish I could know you.  You must have so many wonderful caverns in your mind.  Simple and straight or curved and dark, light, bright, pale.  Thoughts that are caked in the dirt of the past or dreams that gleam brilliant as steel but are equally as unapproachable.  Memories in boxes on shelves with candles and musical and antique banks with bears and painted iron because why now--your mind can be anything.  I wish I could know you.  Instead, I will try and understand you.  Your looks and your eyebrow raises.  Your hand movements.  Your pauses.  Your choices.  The way you stand up, open a door, look at a note, look at yourself, look out a window, look at me.  The way you are curious.

If I do not try to know you, I will not fully know myself.  To try and know a person should be more enlightening, more educational then any book or other tool.  We meet a different world of experience with every handshake.  Every person is an opportunity to know life.

Please, let me know you.