Strings

I sat, staring at the table, swinging a leg, hoping that the meeting wouldn’t turn into the time waste that they always seemed to be.  Trying to think of ways to make the most of my time, I started making a mental grocery list.  Of course, I had forgotten that one actually had to have a menu in order to plan a list of groceries, so I sighed, shifting both in my seat and in my head.

The other people in our small group filled the conference table one by one, dripping in from the rain to puddle in their seats with the blank look of people attending a meeting that they neither understand the need for nor feel the desire to be at.  Behind every chair stood the invisible boss that had ordered us to trudge through the rain.

The corner of my eye caught a silver haired lady walking into the room, capturing everyone’s attention.  She was a stranger to our weekly group staring session but she seemed to think she belonged in our group.  Pulling out a large black folder, she established herself as the answer to all the questions we’d developed over the last month.  The sheet of paper she carefully laid in front of her was an exact copy of the one in front of me, only hers had answers following each question mark.  I shifted again, preparing to be enthralled or to at least give the impression that I cared about what would be said today.

She began to speak and suddenly my attention snapped into place.  Here was a person who seemed to be made entirely from a human salvage yard.  Her entire body seemed to function independently from each other, as if the parts had not yet learned how to work together.  Each motion, breath, word seemed to come through as a string of unrelated events and I watched in a kind of stupefied fascination.

She moved her hands as if they were perhaps controlled by a distant remote control.  Someone was playing a joystick somewhere, trying desperately to get the hands to create a complicated cat’s cradle.  Or maybe the game was based on a grandmother knitting and the grandmother had managed to tangle her hands in an inescapable trap.  Either way, her pink tipped fingers seemed to be still functioning under the command of their previous owner and rebelled against any pleads her brain may have been making to help her supplement the points she was making to the table around her. 

Her facial expressions had little effect at emphasizing any points that came from her mouth.  Her cheeks seemed to work on a random pulley system that jerked them upwards towards her forehead at unpredictable times.  During the middle of points, where a smile was not needed, a joker like look suddenly sprung into place and her lips yanked upwards without any consideration for the words she was trying to form.  The entire time this stranger’s face continued to scroll through a random selection of expressions, much as a screensaver sifts and displays pictures.  The lips always arrived into position slightly behind the eyes or the cheeks slightly ahead of the rest of the face.  Miraculously, nothing ever seemed to work in harmony with each other as if each muscle was warring to take the lead in the expression that was rising to the face.

I began feeling as if I were watching a dubbed movie; not only did the facial expressions seem to be out of time but the speech seemed off to.  Unbelievably, her lips seemed to be forming words vastly different than the ones that were landing on my ears; perhaps this was a ventriloquist act gone horribly wrong. 

Overwhelmed by the strange symphony in front of me, I watched, mesmerized by this strange interaction in front of me.  I couldn’t look away from her.  Even her breath seemed to run independently of her control.  Her chest jerked slightly or her shoulders twitched upwards, all in an uncoordinated attempt to allow the lungs to expand.  Without concern for the rhythm of her speech, air seemed to bubble up at odd times, something she seemed blissfully unaware of.

I sat back, stunned, a trapped witness to this oddity dancing before me.

The meeting ended with little accomplished, just as every previous meeting. But as I gathered my papers into my folder, I felt transported.  My short walk back to the office slid past me unnoticed as I tried to replay what I had just seen.  Back at the building, I entered the elevator, blinked, and convinced myself it had been a really odd dream.

Meet Giddy Freedom

The hand of Giddy Freedom pushed me forward; I stumbled just a little and laughed out loud.  She’d snuck up on me and started pulling me towards a walk as soon as I stepped out of the building.  Her offer was incredibly tempting, especially when I weighed it against the dark dungeon of the gym and the never ending run of the treadmill.  She had beckoned so seductively that I tucked my head and headed towards her, suddenly intent on playing hooky.

Giddy had led the way through the campus and headed across the quad.  The sun brought out short summer dresses and white legs.  The campus was covered colorful dress splayed against brilliant spring grass.  She and I ambled, bumping into each other; energetic electrons bouncing off each other and working ourselves into frenzy.  We giggled like embarrassed curious school kids when we saw a couple kiss and gawked at the shirtless young man catching the Frisbee.
 
True to her style, Giddy had suddenly streaked across the lawn and began twirling around in front of a fiddle player.  I leaned against a tree to give her time to work the music out of her body.  I understood – I could feel the flutter that the bluegrass encouraged growing in my own chest.  Just as mesmerized as she, I watched in a trance and lost myself in the voice of the guitar player when he hesitantly began a ballad.  We were off again.

Now, she was pushing me; I could feel her hand on my back.  I could feel her urge me forward, laughing in my ear that we had nothing to do, nowhere to be, there was nothing stopping us from anything.  Ms. Freedom always knew the little things to say.  Her touch seemed to sink inside my chest and stir everything up but I didn’t speed up or slow down.  Instead I simply expanded to let Giddy ease inside my body.  She was a great fit – she rode just below the skin and I knew that the rest of the trip home would bring nothing but amusement, beautiful impulses, secret smiles and bouncy steps. 

Giddy and I were gonna have a fine spring stroll – just the two of us.