Gun-Jumping (On strangers and strangeness)
Is it slightly jumping the gun to think that I can be absolutely clear about anything? I know that
people pretend to be assured all too often. Some even know they are pretending and yet, they
continue. That disturbs me. I think it’s the overwhelming pity that wells up in me in a kind of
anthropomorphic dam. It pushes at the walls of my moral guidelines and I swear, the dyke is soon to
crumble under the weight of what I have seen. So I don’t like pretense much. A cup of authenticity
anyone?
It’s the concern you see. It’s actually the concern that is my enemy. I’ve done my level best to not
collect human enemies. They are formidable things to possess. But these intangible things that seem
to exist all too strongly to be denied; it is those things that antagonise me. Anyway, back to the gun-
jumping. Before I was almost lost in this short metaphysical self pity session, I was thinking about
living a life of value. You can make it Value if you like but that’s just semantics. It was the look on her
face when I crossed the busy street. It was only two lanes but the way she looked at me, you could
swear I’d just parted the Pacific for her. I didn’t mind. If anything I like my effort noticed. I like the
idea that sacrifice was seen, noted and I was watching to see how this sacrifice would be rewarded.
There was a story to her. She had a lot to do with the concern in me. My precious enemy: my will to
care.
The first time I met her, she seemed familiar. Little did I know that I’d never know her. At least until
today, her life is a mystery I haven’t even been educated on, never mind solved. I wanted to read
each page of her, back then. Now, well now I don’t know what I want.
My intentions had direction back then. Now, clarity seems to have put 20 tectonic plates between itself and I. I don’t believe I have it in me to quake myself towards clarity. There are many mistakes I have commited, but the power to break into full comprehension of one’s motivations, that needs a different kind of fault line. Funny isn’t it? Fault lines have nothing to do with error. So let me tell the truth. I do not remember the first time I met her. All I remember is the last time.
The last time was new. And new things survive the onslaught of our memory. New things shine their way through, glistening effortlessly with the power of youth. Recent transpirations have a way of dextrously walking to your fore-consciousness and laying claim to it. To remember the old is to be nostalgic but to remember the recent, that’s survival. Her body seemed beleaguered by effort. She seemed to carry herself the way anyone in a full time job does. It was a strength-within- surrender kind of pose. As if she had been getting looked at all day and I deserved to see what they’d been seeing. Before I reached the other side of the street, the cars parting between my messiahnic fingers, she changed her stance. Now she seemed to be thinking of what to say beyond “Hi.” So was I. She was gorgeous in those denim pants and Chinese printed long sleeve shirt. I had my eyes feasting on the sight of her pert breast cleavage and it was hard to be witty. So I said “hi” again. She carried a royal air about her. The type of feeling a dethroned queen would give you 20 years after losing her crown. The feeling that maybe power didn’t just lay in those that gave or took it from you. Maybe power belonged in the place only you could lay claim to. A place only you can mine fruitfully. She looked like digging was her talent, amongst many others. After the “Hi’s” it was a matter of : "Where are you headed girl? I’ll walk you." "Oh really, you’ll walk me home? Thank you. Yeah, I stay just up the road here."
"Well hills are my specialty. An uphill climb is a decline, depending on your vantage point. Things are less difficult once one sees how relative it all is."
She asked me what I’ve been up to. I didn’t know how to reply. I was looking for a way to tell her that I was redesigning my paradigms. I was trying to explain to her that I was tearing down everything I thought I believed and pulling what I would call a Descartes on myself. You know, method of doubt and all that. A ‘Descartes’, real witty man, I beat myself mentally at that notion. So I told her I’d been writing. I told her I’d been writing the things I’ve always wanted to write. We were not even a quarter of the way up the hill yet. She commented on the fact that I still write. But her words felt chosen, as if she’s been playing safe all day and now wasn’t the time to let her guard down. But I was a familiar face, and I had just drowned a pharoah’s army just to meet her across this surburban road. If she would not wash my feet with her hair, then my words would wash hers. By the time we’d reach her house, my alabaster mouth would be empty of it’s oils, spent on the effort to please a girl that felt like she wasn’t a stranger but responded like one. What to do, what to do? We had hugged as soon as I’d crossed the street. It had been a strangely warm welcome to her side of the road. An invitation to her attention made by a simple body gesture. Even subtle acts of physical closeness have their signals to be deciphered. The question was, was she sending any? Between genders, there lies a subtle lack of understanding. As if our worlds weren’t meant to fully co-exist. It’s this gap between the male and female that makes the thrills thrilling. It makes for excitement in the interactions between, allowing mystery and intrigue room to bloom. She could have been saying “Welcome,” or just “Hi.” In my head, I wanted to know what was important to her. I wanted to peel both our skins of and leave us unrecognizable. Just so we could be wholly authentic. I wanted to subtract the discomfort of a person not completely a stranger but too distant to ease up to. Our steps were deliberate, maybe because we were both deliberating. The conversation meandered towards us. Why have we decided to not be in each other lives? In any degree. Why had we lived separate lives, knowing nothing but our first names.? Why had this relationship become one of association rather than detail?
But she was just a stranger. And me, I was jumping the gun. Creativity is a pathology I have yet to be cured off.
My intentions had direction back then. Now, clarity seems to have put 20 tectonic plates between itself and I. I don’t believe I have it in me to quake myself towards clarity. There are many mistakes I have commited, but the power to break into full comprehension of one’s motivations, that needs a different kind of fault line. Funny isn’t it? Fault lines have nothing to do with error. So let me tell the truth. I do not remember the first time I met her. All I remember is the last time.
The last time was new. And new things survive the onslaught of our memory. New things shine their way through, glistening effortlessly with the power of youth. Recent transpirations have a way of dextrously walking to your fore-consciousness and laying claim to it. To remember the old is to be nostalgic but to remember the recent, that’s survival. Her body seemed beleaguered by effort. She seemed to carry herself the way anyone in a full time job does. It was a strength-within- surrender kind of pose. As if she had been getting looked at all day and I deserved to see what they’d been seeing. Before I reached the other side of the street, the cars parting between my messiahnic fingers, she changed her stance. Now she seemed to be thinking of what to say beyond “Hi.” So was I. She was gorgeous in those denim pants and Chinese printed long sleeve shirt. I had my eyes feasting on the sight of her pert breast cleavage and it was hard to be witty. So I said “hi” again. She carried a royal air about her. The type of feeling a dethroned queen would give you 20 years after losing her crown. The feeling that maybe power didn’t just lay in those that gave or took it from you. Maybe power belonged in the place only you could lay claim to. A place only you can mine fruitfully. She looked like digging was her talent, amongst many others. After the “Hi’s” it was a matter of : "Where are you headed girl? I’ll walk you." "Oh really, you’ll walk me home? Thank you. Yeah, I stay just up the road here."
"Well hills are my specialty. An uphill climb is a decline, depending on your vantage point. Things are less difficult once one sees how relative it all is."
She asked me what I’ve been up to. I didn’t know how to reply. I was looking for a way to tell her that I was redesigning my paradigms. I was trying to explain to her that I was tearing down everything I thought I believed and pulling what I would call a Descartes on myself. You know, method of doubt and all that. A ‘Descartes’, real witty man, I beat myself mentally at that notion. So I told her I’d been writing. I told her I’d been writing the things I’ve always wanted to write. We were not even a quarter of the way up the hill yet. She commented on the fact that I still write. But her words felt chosen, as if she’s been playing safe all day and now wasn’t the time to let her guard down. But I was a familiar face, and I had just drowned a pharoah’s army just to meet her across this surburban road. If she would not wash my feet with her hair, then my words would wash hers. By the time we’d reach her house, my alabaster mouth would be empty of it’s oils, spent on the effort to please a girl that felt like she wasn’t a stranger but responded like one. What to do, what to do? We had hugged as soon as I’d crossed the street. It had been a strangely warm welcome to her side of the road. An invitation to her attention made by a simple body gesture. Even subtle acts of physical closeness have their signals to be deciphered. The question was, was she sending any? Between genders, there lies a subtle lack of understanding. As if our worlds weren’t meant to fully co-exist. It’s this gap between the male and female that makes the thrills thrilling. It makes for excitement in the interactions between, allowing mystery and intrigue room to bloom. She could have been saying “Welcome,” or just “Hi.” In my head, I wanted to know what was important to her. I wanted to peel both our skins of and leave us unrecognizable. Just so we could be wholly authentic. I wanted to subtract the discomfort of a person not completely a stranger but too distant to ease up to. Our steps were deliberate, maybe because we were both deliberating. The conversation meandered towards us. Why have we decided to not be in each other lives? In any degree. Why had we lived separate lives, knowing nothing but our first names.? Why had this relationship become one of association rather than detail?
But she was just a stranger. And me, I was jumping the gun. Creativity is a pathology I have yet to be cured off.
Comments
Post a Comment