Text and Hubris

When I was 11, I wrote a story about a dragon, a scorpion, and a young woman. It was awful in that way that all middle school stories seem to be. It was all action, no description, filled with clumsy, silly lines that kept the text from every hitting a decent stride. I loved that story, though.  I worked on it every day. It was mine. Almost twenty-five years later, I am still playing with that story. By now, it is a strange, convoluted fantasy/sci-fi epic that has changed and grown almost as much as its author. Even now, it plays out in my head in those moments before sleep or in those quiet times during the day when my mind has a moment to wander.

I wrote the first part of that story in a yellow notebook my mother bought me. I wrote in the first person and I was proud because I had just learned what first person meant. It was my fantasy journal, a mixture of pretend and creation that suited me so well at the time.

That summer of that year I went to scouting camp and I brought my notebook with me. I was promised some quiet time and I thought that I might have the chance to write. I was dreaming about being an author, someday, and I imagined that this was how they started. I was young, still thinking about options and possibilities. I forgot about the accommodations: small tents and cots with nosy tent-mates.

There was an argument between myself and another boy from my tent. I can’t tell you what we argued over. The topic is lost to me, dead. I forgot it the instant he sneered and mentioned something I had written in my little yellow notebook. It undid me in a way I never expected. They had taken my story. They trashed something that I had built and loved, and I had no clue what to say or do.

I swore at him. I never swore. I grew up in a household where swearing was unimaginable and I swore. I was so angry there were in tears my eyes and I kept swearing. My tent-mates only found this amusing but it was the most damning act I could think of at the time. I stormed off and from that point forward all I wanted to do was go home.

When I got home, I sealed that little notebook away and I never showed it to anyone. It is lost now. A victim of a childhood spent moving. I quit Scouts. I still wrote but in quiet places where my notebooks were safe.

I still fight with that angry little boy, today. He is my biggest critic. His fear and anger sits in my chest. It is an anchor. It is the reason I still do what I do instead of doing what I love. Every day, I get up and I tell the boy that we have to keep going and we do. He rails and screams and swears and the going is slow and agonizing but we keep going. He lists the failures, the falls, and all the mistakes. He mentions that camp and the sneers and I tell him I am so sorry that happened, but I can’t stay there anymore. So I wake up tomorrow and I try again. I am not sure where this ends up, but I still struggle and that must mean something.

At least, I hope that it does.

[nbcite author="justinjfj" title="Le Louvre - Do Not Touch Works of Art" year="2009" city="Paris" publisher="Flickr" month="04" day="29" type="blog" ]

Before entering the gallery, we were stripped of our coats and packs, our notebooks, pens and pencils. Nearby, a man with a golden badge and balding head watched us wearily as we left pieces of ourselves outside the door while a woman who looked like she should have worn large colored glasses spoke in clipped tones that dripped condescension.

“Stay at least two feet away from the art at all times.”
“Do not touch.”
“Do not look too closely.”
“Observe from afar.”
“I will tell you what it all means.”

I knew then that this was no place I wanted to be.

When I was 16, I was nearly kicked out of a museum in London because I could not keep my hands off the scultpures. It only made sense. These were creations of the hand. They all but begged me to reach out and trace their lines, those smoothed edges, the hidden nooks and crannies all carefully crafted by artists now gone but always here, always alive in the form and feel of these creations. How could I not touch them?

We walked through the gallery where the images were set in antiseptic gray and listened to the story of an artist defined through another’s eyes. We could not, dared not, judge the work for ourselves. That was sacrilege.

I reached out a hand.

Thank God for Heresy.

[nbcite print="apa" ]

“I can’t!” she whined and tried to fit the pieces together. “They just won’t go.” The rest of the class knew she was being difficult. She was always pretending that the pieces could connect in different ways and that she could design and build the structures rather than follow the instructions to make the good ones she was supposed to build. This was absolute silliness and they all just wished she would do as she was told. It was to be recess soon and they didn’t want to be kept in again.

“Everything must be in its place,” the teacher replied, “and every piece must fit as it should. You know how they fit. Now do it right. Don’t make me call your mother, again.”

The girl paused, tears still welling in her eyes. When they first called her mother she was glad they did. Her mother had always been there for her and she expected her teacher and principal would soon get a very stern talking to like she did when she made her sand castles in the living room using up the last of her mothers potting soil. Things were different, though. This school was different. “You’re there to learn, Abigail,” her mother was angry with her but there was tremor in her voice as well. Abigail didn’t know that parents could be afraid or else she may recognized it. “Stop playing foolish games and do the work. If you want to be anything you have to follow instructions.” She had tried to argue. She tried to tell her mother that the pictures in her head were so much more beautiful and that she could make things, real things that shimmered like butterflies and moved and danced. Her mother wouldn’t listen, though. “Please, Abby, enough with this foolishness. Just do what Mrs. Anders tells you.”

And there Mrs. Anders was, glaring down at the girl daring her to break the rules. Abigail turned the pieces over and slid them together until a soft click was heard. The class cheered and Mrs. Anders actually smiled. “See my dear, you could do it. I knew you could. You get a gold star. I am sure your mother will be quite proud.”

Abigail smiled happily and took her gold star from Mrs. Anders. She placed carefully in the square on her chart and took her seat.

Today was going to be a good day.

Sam woke up today and asked himself that age old question.

“Why?”

I would have told him the answer, too, if I had any clue as to what it was. Instead, I remained silent. After all, what could I say that hadn’t already been said? The floor, all tile and linoleum, was icy cold and unswept. Small specks of sand and dirt clung to Sam’s feet as he walked toward the old bathroom. There was a gun on the nightstand. It was empty but the metal barrel still flickered ominously in the dawn’s light. Somewhere, I heard a wracking, hacking, cough that seemed to echo from every part of the old motel in which we were staying.

Why, indeed?

The water from the shower kicked on and Sam let it run for a full minute before the rusty red from the pipes finally cleared away. At least it was hot. Small bits of steam rose and obscured the bathroom. Everything became wet and the cold of the floor quickly spread to faucet handles and walls. The steam warmed the air, though, and Sam breathed it in with slow, steady, breaths. This was meditation

..and preparation.

I had planned on eating my lunch in the park yesterday, but the rain put an end to that. Instead, I wandered downstairs and look for a seat in the work cafeteria. It still amazes how much like high school this place is. Here, I am a youngster. Most of my colleagues are in their 40′s and yet there are the managers sitting at one table, the go-getters at another, and the social butterflies at yet another. I note this as further evidence that the social divisions of a nation, a school, and a workplace are all the same.

With that cheerful thought in mind, I almost think of tossing my meal and heading upstairs. I think it would be easier than to watch this. I am hungry, though, and I can’t will myself to throw away food simply due to my own frustration. I sit at a table far removed from the rest, pull my sandwich out of the brown paper bag I’ve been carrying with me and commence eating.

They all talk at once. I listen and I watch and I catalog a hundred conversations about nothing. Jim is ranting about politics, George rambles on about his ongoing home repairs while Angie and Chad are whispering in the back almost too conspiratorially considering they are both married and not to each other. This latter issue would count as gossip here. I can already see the social butterflies, more vampires than butterflies, watching closely.

I know I should get up and leave. Upstairs there is nothing to do but log into the same systems and do the same thing I have been doing. The new technology has left us behind. Now, I work on 10 yr. old platforms that just won’t die. Now, I watch high school politics play out in a nearly empty cafeteria that used to house hundreds.

This is my life.

And yet, there is always that whisper in my ear. That echo that says,

“It doesn’t have to be…”