As I lend this body to this mind, the question arises: what defines me?
Perhaps I am whatever will remain once we have basically established
what I am not. This, however, leaves us with two sets, which are likely
to expand ad infinitum, and as such, they might not necessarily be equal
in their implications.
I chipped a plate today, and as insignificant as it might seem, it somehow saddened me.
I have had it for sixteen years, and it has survived in mint condition through daily use,
three home moves, and a breakup. And yet, one moment of inattention was all it took.
So I guess it may no longer be of use to serve my guests, but I will save it to show you
that having a past does not rule out a future—one day, when we meet.
My kids’ language is not my mother tongue.
My mother tongue is no longer a language
of mine. My everyday language bewilders
everyone else. Perhaps we all speak fluent
stranger.
I have always been a man of few words. Even back in the day, as a journalist,
I preferred news over reportage. First, you clearly state the event, its location,
and the time frame. After that comes the purpose, and only then is the reason.
In the end, it turns out that life boils down to these five fundamental questions:
what, where, when, what for, and why, in that exact order. And yet somehow,
we are so fixated on the last two.
What if imagination is a decaying sense, only temporarily kept alive like a fading memory
of the letters I once wrote? For instance, the other day I was going through the laundry
and found in the inside pocket of my jacket an old coffee shop bill with a note on the back:
“Your lips have no eyes; my eyes have no lips—we are complementary entities.” I recall
that tingling feeling when we walked with cups, holding hands, unaware it was the last time
in a crowd where no one looked at us, and you liked it that way, regretting only that real life
has no soundtrack. Then, for a while, our hands practised irrelevant gestures to pass the time
between meals and sleeping hours. I know; I never asked why you decided to run into me.
You never asked why I left, either. Perhaps we were always just perfect strangers in disguise,
rehearsing another day of their drama on paper.
They say that with age comes wisdom. Perhaps, but how can I be certain?
What I do know for sure is that with age comes nocturia, high cholesterol,
and a bad temper, although in fact I was grumpy even before I got older.
Touch wood, I am mobile and keep up with my work. But I have also lost
my inclination to claim the source of all earthly goods that we endlessly
pursue. Because who needs cornucopia in the age of waste-defined plenty,
where even the ever-reinvented trinity of ubertas, veritas, and auctoritas
gravitates towards mockery?
Facing the future, I tend to drift towards the bygone predicament of the here and now,
as if the past were all that should concern me, yet I obsessively control each and every
passing moment as though a pocket watch I stole from my great-grandfather and carry
everywhere could keep them alive for a little longer. Then I wish there was more time,
often when it is too late for a little sleight of hand—the last trionfi card is already dealt.
I know we always assume that parental love is a given,
but have you ever wondered what it would be like to be
the reason your parents have been at each other’s throats
for as long as you can remember, just because the distance
between their wedding anniversary and your birthday
is oddly close? Personally, I feel like I would rather never
have been born than bear such a burden, but it so happened
that I was, and trust me, it rips every bit of light out of you,
to the point that you lock yourself in a room with books
read by street light, standing behind a curtain. This is how
madmen and poets are born.
How could you not resent happy people when they are so—how to put it—happy
that your teeth hurt? But do not worry; they are not that much different from you.
They are just a tad better thespians. Of course, you can always try hard to change
something, even if only the scenery, hoping that a new scene will make a new act
possible, and the new act will make you a new, hopefully happier person. Perhaps
all you have to do is move elsewhere. The problem is that it is a little like buying
new clothes. They may be fashionable, but you are still naked underneath.
hidden pilcrow 