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.

Mr. Odd Job Says

Where does the will to win come from? When did we learn that the ritualized combat of sport was acceptable? No, more than acceptable. Enjoyable. Desirable. Addictive.

After he kicked me in the gut and the brass button on my patched corduroys flew open. Without even a cartoon lightning bolt, I transformed from a shy, grinning, thoughtful kid into an animal that reacted on a level that surprised and delighted and scared me. Time slowed as I processed sights and sounds and sensations efficiently, ruthlessly. Pain was there but it was a side issue, a prod to action more than a reminder of mortality. 

So I charged at the source of the pain with a speed that didn't belong to the poor kid that got good grades. I caught his next kick. It hurt to absorb the impact, I think. It would probably leave a bruise but that was in a future that was inconsequential to the now.  And now I had him, the bully with the crew cut hopping on one leg as I kept coming and brought him to the mowed grass of the front yard. He pushed at my face with his hands, a jagged nail scratching me under the eye and I kept coming until my hand was on his throat. I jerked his head forward and back, the soft thud of a fifth grade skull in the whisper brittle late fall grass barely heard. His eyes closed with the pain. When his face pinched and reddened from the strain of trying to breathe, trying to get away from defeat, get away from me, I felt a vicious joy. I would have growled or howled from the abandon of the victory but I'm not an animal. 

A hard shove from a bystander knocked me off of him and I started to come down from the competitive high. I was winning a game that I hadn't ever won before. I knew I'd be chasing that transformation again. All I had to do was stick my nose in, pay the pain booth a toll of a bruise or two, and I would be a winner again. 

Thus is recognized the animal lust for victory mollified into a competition addict by the rules of sport. Game on.

Racquetball flickers

Flickers

The ball bounces and I vanish.  Conscious awareness of my body ceases: when i reappear I am across the room reaching to make contact with ball. 

Whap.

Relaxed now, I watch my partner track the ball.  His head turns and he begins to move towards where he thinks it will end up.   Bouncing on the balls of my feet I wait.  I’m clear headed, aware of the contact of my feet with the floor.  I ride each small hop, testing weight of the racket in my hand.  I’m aware of the strength of my grip, every muscle in my legs, the set of my back.   Concentrate. I hear him make contact. It’s my turn to anticipate the path of the blue ball. 

Whap.

I blink out of existence.  My legs push forward, my arm swings, my mind whirls to fast for me to keep up with - trying to make predictions and calculations.  I’m in black out.

Whap.

The wall is suddenly rushing towards me and I turn to take the impact on the back of my shoulder while I orient myself.  My eyes instantly search for the ball, my grip relaxing on the racket for a brief minute.  As quickly as possible, I push off the wall and head toward the middle of the court, watching my opponent’s movements.  His racket comes up lazily and taps the ball. I’d better start running.

Whap.

Silence.  Eagerness.  Determination.  Hope.

Whap.

I snap back into a world of white walls with impact marks on them.  The ball is arching over head and I hold my breath.  Silently, I urge it towards the back wall – anticipating the satisfaction of seeing it make contact. The ceiling gets in the way and my careful plan is shattered;  I stop bouncing as the ball changes it's trajectory and streaks towards the floor, half an inch from the wall.  My shoulder drop, my racquet lowers, and I grunt. Dang it.

Reset.

Mr. Odd Job Says:

Translation is tricky and imprecise.

Roger Ebert has a new computer voice that translates his written text into something spoken so we can hear him. Some engineering wizards took hundreds of samples of his old voice, lost to cancer, and built the sound blocks that will allow him to speak again.

But somehow, I don't think Ebert will ever be completely happy with his new voice. I'm sure his gratitude is unending, but there will be times often enough when that computer translation of his text, itself a translation of Ebert's thought, will miss his intent. He'll formulate words, hear the alien strangeness of a machine with his voice repeat those words, and then find the spaces where the machine's voice -- his voice -- got it wrong. It will have messed up the emphasis. It will have lost the pause and or wry sarcasm or bored vocal shuffle that he heard in his head. And then he'll fight to find the words that communicate his feelings without being reliant on the context of human expression.

And that fight can't be won.

In the search for the proper collection of letters to communicate reality to someone else, we have to give up some of our meaning, just as Ebert has to give up some of his expression to the bytes and limitations of the marvel that gives him speech. We have to collect the words that match our experience closest and hope that we can find enough of a connection with the audience that they read those words and hear our voices and intent. Of course the audience will add something at times and miss something at times. But when the mesh occurs, something beautiful happens.

Communication is faith. Blogging is a prayer to humanity. Hear me, o reader, hear my voice and let your spirit merge with mine. Let my words touch you as your act of listening and translating has touched me. Let us reside in our world of cooperation for a moment so that we can all know that we are not alone. Amen.

In Translation

The desire to sift through images and solidify them into words does not constitute an ability to do so effectively.  Words are not always effective translations for the actions and images around us.  Nor is it always possible to push and mold the words into minor, faded representations of what we see without our eyes.  Perhaps this is the starting point that we all need to run our hands over and understand.

Our experiences have different textures for us all.  Hand one person a bitter memory and, with eyes blindfolded, they feel acidic juices that when tasted pucker their mouth shut.  Another person may feel weeping clay and realize that it only needs a bit of time before they are able to mold something beautiful out of what used to be ugly.  Still another person may run their hands through the memory and be met by course denim, scrapping and immobile.  But that same person may choose to work with the memory, running water through it, soaping it up, drying it and beating the cloth with wizened hands – tanning the toughened memory with patience and attention.  Soon, they have soft worn cotton.  Soon, they have a cloth that anyone can touch and relish.

The one thing that we all share is an attempt to translate ourselves daily into a spoken and written language.  We all stumble over words, trying to find the precise term that will convey the deepest meaning with the most clarity.   We all are in translation.  We all hope that our minds can translate quick enough and clear enough that our audience will understand what we so desperately want them to understand.  Each person feels, not in words, but in stirrings and flashes that come with no letters.  Each soul vibrates, curls inwards, glows colors never seen, hollows out, fills to over flowing.  Each touch is not done in letters – no combination of the alphabet will ever feel the same sliding over our wrist.  There is no formation of the tongue that can accurately shape our experience of breathing in and out in utter happiness and contentment. 

We all, each of us, pour ourselves into translation.  Trying to fit our daily shakes and shivers into words that let others know that we are scared – that we swell beyond our skin with happiness – that we feel quiet green filling our limbs with languid contentment. 

We are all in translation.  I only hope that some of us can get it right.