The Green Curtain

Sometimes it is difficult to understand why communication lapses between people--people who seem to have interests in common, values in common, a desire to get to know each other better, and suddenly absence. Silence is neutral. Absence is loss.

It is generally believed that the almighty Internet has fast-tracked communication. However, I believe that instead the use of texting, emailing, and facebooking has taken away the humanity of certain communication. If asking a person out, shouldn't you take the time to call and talk to the person, weigh the conversation and ask them? Texting is the Wizard of Oz's way out. I understand. I get it. It is easier to hide behind the green curtain of technology than putting your face and/or voice on the line. But what is missed. What integrity and depth is lost by abbreviating our attempts to connect?

Not to mention, the expectations between people are so different. Personally, I feel obligated to respond to every text, missed call, voicemail, and email in a timely manner. Is that my personality? Is it the cultural expectation of how I was raised? Is it kind? or just empty politeness? Is it easier to dehumanize those in Ether and, therefore, dehumanize ourselves? Are we to some extent already transformed into robots?

The Golden Age is elusive. I am not putting technology down, but I am stressing what every one knows and so many have said more eloquently than this: the chasm between person to person is as expansive as the reaches of the technology that we rely on.  The irony is we are told how "connected" we are, how many friends we have, how many find the love of their life online, so when you find yourself not fitting into the cyber Culture, you are dejected and considered out of the loop/behind the times/missing opportunities that work "for everyone". Welcome to the CyberVoid.

Naked and Ready to Rumble

As I begin, let me be aware of the danger of abstraction. Today, my eyes are clear, the sky is bluer than two days ago, the sunlight is calling me out of my cocoon. Days ago, my eyes were blinded by the shapes looming on the cinderblock of unrealized dreams--of being a name in an anthology, a charcoal grey pencil skirt with a fat paycheck, a lunch-date with girlfriends, a story-teller/listener with tea at a kitchen table,  a jean-wearing Mom laughing as her curly-headed child is tossed in the air, a showered-fresh and shaved leg waiting for her lover. Today is the equivalent of shedding 35 unwanted pounds or peeling the flakes of dead skin off a sun-ripped back. I am free from the puppet show of what is not. Life is short. I know this. I have lived this. Success is too high on the levels of abstraction to mean anything until it is defined. Good lesson. Success for me is still being defined.

Getting naked. Stripping your should've/could've/would've's and your fears and your pain is liberating, right? and almost impossible, or is it? One question I am learning to ask is What if __________(the worst thing you can think of) is true? What if the fear beating you down, pinning you against the floor, sucking your breath out, is real--does happen? This is not news. It is obvious, but it is difficult for me to face. The most dangerous place to be is in the gap between now and fear.

I do not want to live in fear.  I want to live in now. I want to wrestle free from the overbearing, hugging faux-satin orange jumpsuit pulling my hair and pinning me with his knees. Now is what we have. What if it is not what I imagined? What if it is not worthy of a cereal box or magazine cover? What if it is my life...It is my life. So, I choose to live it, stripped, naked, and ready to rumble.

([{.?!...,"' ;-:}]) Punctuation

It is the design of the paragraph/the column/the novel. It is the discussion between reader and writer about unraveling the substance or lack thereof of the piece. It is the composition of the subject matter for the photographer/the painter. It is the brackets by which we live, isn't it?

I have given much thought to how my day is punctuated; how my life is patterned to unravel each day. My punctuation is, unfortunately, haphazard and detracting from the merit of my subject (my life). I realize that I am high on the Hayakawa's ladder of abstractions, and that writing is much better on levels 1 and 2.

So, let me go there: My first question mark of the day is what to eat and promptly answered by a ham and banana toasted sandwich and coffee. The second is why I am sitting at my mother's table missing a father to laugh and dance at my wedding, a mother to hold my hand, and a friend to tell me a story. The first period of the day is breakfast --then walking with my best friend, Estee. The next, a semi-colon, is to ask someone to go to have lunch, a bogo free hamburger.

Note to self: I have not been exceptionally hungry biologically and have even felt repulsed by clocking my time with food. My eating is causing me distress because I am fueling a monster that I cannot catch. I want to catch the greased pig of negativity racing through the mud. But my hands slip sending me to the outer brackets of my day's inner punctuation: the one or two tears I let go every few days, the distaste of my reflection, the absence of someone to touch, and the deep hunger to fill my days better.

Finding Hope--Look Closely