Man...today got me stumbling all over myself.
We can pretty much agree that the sky is blue and clouds are fluffy-looking and it hurts when you get hit by a car--but what of the different versions of our feelings? The shade of one person's love in comparison to another's? Or embarrassment or excitement? How is embarrassment perceived--where in the body does one feel embarrassed? And where do we learn that from? Did someone tell us or better yet show us how to be embarrassed and we absorbed it, like a twin in the womb?
Yeah. I mean I think. There are many or at least more than one who show us, and it is shocking to really grasp how deeply they have grafted onto you.
A close friend of mine once described a situation where her lifelong friend, Jacob, was very much a part of the development of her senses. Like most of us, we have these relationships that solidify how we see and do things on a daily basis. My friend described a day where she and Jacob were sitting in her car together and she happened to be talking with a pen in her hand. The pen was black. She was playing with the pen while they were in a parking lot, I think--waiting for a friend. Anyway, she said she realized suddenly while looking at the black pen that Jacob could have convinced her in that moment that the black pen she was holding was actually purple. They had known each other for ten years. In that moment, casually, Jacob could just explain that all along she had been incorrect--and that black was in fact purple, and purple was black and she had just gotten it wrong. It would have actually been possible for her to take this as fact, because Jacob's perception of fact she valued as much as her own and the power of this realization she found deeply unsettling. She then started to wonder what subtleties of perception Jacob had already adjusted for her, knowing him since she was fourteen. No doubt there were conversations and communications where something was not as obvious to the world
--like black being purple or vice-versa--something that went on behind the closed curtains of her heart and quickly molded into her very own idiosyncrasy without her permission! Whoosh, instantaneous! And now it was something she couldn't get rid of and had to hold onto forever because it would be too hard to dig it out or even find it for that matter? Like that sewing machine her uncle gave her. She doesn't sew. She realized that Jacob taught her how to love. (It was the pen's fault).
I suppose we all have these subtleties of perception. Things we've learned from people we allow ourselves to care for and have therefore taken for granted. As the self unfolds these idiosyncrasies usually emerge in intimate relationships, where one feels safe enough--if only for a moment--to express the private workings of our brains and hearts. And why not? Intimate relationships are that moment where the stage lights get turned on, or field lights for a night game. It almost feels like everyone is ready and waiting to throw that pitch, just hoping to be asked to show the world how hard they can throw and the second they know the crowd is watching they let it fly. It could be a terrible disaster and you could make all kinds of excuses for the pitch but goddamn you threw it hard, didn't you? Just then? You were throwing because it felt good and you were waiting for the crowd's reaction? Approval?...
I am unclear today. I am dancing around the point. I mean I usually dance around the point but I'm not doing it in an interesting way...we're all secretly wired to throw wild pitches. We have to. We're just waddling around, looking for these specific people who will get to know us enough to allow us the opportunity to flex the good arm--and we really don't know what's going to happen. And I believe it isn't just for vanity. We don't need to hear how great we are all the time--I mean that's nice too, but the opportunity to show strength by throwing the weird pitches--strikes me as so lovely today that I am windless. Winded. I am amazed at human beings. Amazed at the extent of beauty in our bottomless flaws.
And this is why beer was invented. To get people relaxed enough to share the first pitch. My pitch analogy is overly exhausted, but it deals with the posturing and preparation and "show" before the actual throw...this is what I mean. The ritual wind-up. I pray everyone winds up and lets it rip. Say what you gotta say. It's written in your blood. You can fight it, but I will tell you right now that awkward throw will always win the tournament. Because no one has rehearsed its outcome.
~ B
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