2002-12-06 - 3:52 p.m.: moose drool

i have a few things to say. they've been like music playing through my head. here's the score:

Track 1. Lost-And-Found Sunday

my forgotten sunday remembered itself today, giving me a new, beautiful memory that i need to write down before it wriggles away again. sunday. after church (which i only attend with my parents with a sort of *fingerscrossedbehindmyback* sincerity) i had a conversation with andy (my 12-year-old brother) about god. about possibilities and probabilities. he doesn't believe in the things he's been taught and the alternative, for him, was NOTHING. no god, no afterlife, no santa claus. it seemed, to him, like a big, cheap trick to keep people smiling and safe. i couldn't deny his logic...but i wanted him to be smiling and safe.

yes, i'm that big sister.

so i started "educating" him in terms of what i understood about faith and possibility. i told him about d.h. lawrence and the apocolypse. i told him about robert heinlen and strangers from mars. we talked about karma, reincarnation and old souls. about black, white and shades of grey (and how no one on earth will be able to explain red or blue or yellow using those terms). we talked about kant. we talked about death. we sighed.

when we came to the point at which i knew he knew that no conclusions could possibly be drawn from reason alone, we stopped.

i smiled. he frowned.

"what do YOU believe?" he asked.

shit.

"i'm not sure..." i said. but.. goddamn that sounded lame. so i went on. "i don't know what i believe, exactly... but i guess i could tell you what i imagine, at least." he got that look on his face like "oooh yeah, story time..." sitting on his hands, curling his toes, looking up at me with those great, wide, salivating eyes... so hungry for knowledge or certainty or direction... i almost fell over.

"ummm.... well... picture a huge lake. an ocean. water as far as you can see. really big." yeah... i'm smooth.

"okay...?"

"okay. that's god. alright?"

"um... okay."

"alright. now imagine that this ocean... god... is, like, evaporating. okay?"

"okay..."

"okay. so it's evaporating and these millions of tiny particles are rising up into the sky. way up. and the higher they get... the further away from this ocean... the colder they get. then, when they're really high up, they start to freeze into these beautiful snowflakes. got it?"

"ummm...?"

"so they're snowflakes. and... they're all different, all beautiful and special. well.. they're people."

"okay!"

"alright! well... these people live out their little snowflake lives... completely apart from each other but aware enough of their likenesses to feel like.. the same. a little bit. right?"

"okay..."

"but they're lonely. and they don't really know what they came from, or what happens when they melt and lose their specialness. their individuality. got it?"

"yeah."

"but they have to. they melt. and... they rain back into the ocean to remember where they came from... how they're really all the same. but different."

"and it starts all over again?"

"maybe... i don't know. that would be nice."

we stopped talking for a little while... i stared at his socks. they were dirty and falling off... i wanted to pull them off and tickle his feet... make him giggle like a little kid should... but he was deep in thought. i was beginning to get afraid that i'd scarred him... that i'd abstracted his world too far away from what he could imagine... twisted it into something he couldn't hold on to. then he smiled.

"julie, i think that was a very good analogy," he said.

what could i say?

Track 2. JB

i don't really know what to say about this. jb is a beautiful person. she is open and generous with her tenderness and has taught me a LOT about honesty and emotion. i'm only afraid that i'm not a worthy pupil. i don't know what to do with the things she pours in my lap. i want to make everything better. she doesn't need that. i get the feeling that anything i could say to her, she'd understand. it frightens me. i'm so used to feeling misunderstood that i've built a whole philosophy around it. how much would i have to change about myself to let her in? i don't know. i don't know how to be a friend... i only know how to act like one.

even now, i'm stilted. i don't know how to frame my feelings in words. i feel closed to someone who is asking me to be open... it's time for a decision, yet i'm resisting. what am i afraid of? is this wisdom or fear? i really couldn't say.

this is new territory... i guess i could be thankful for that alone.

i've seen another's heart and it beats like mine. i want to run away.

Track 3. Bookstore Boogie

i was working at the bookstore wednesday and this guy came up to the counter... dressed in a black down coat with a hood, black pants, black sneakers, etc. he handed me his purchase and stood there, waiting. i scanned it all and looked up to tell him the total. he was looking past me, his head was bobbing and his fingers were tapping on the counter. he was dancing. DANCING. without giving a flying fuck what other people thought. he must have had headphones on under the hat. i was thrilled. i smiled and took his money and finished the cha-ching thing... i wanted to laugh out loud. i wanted to jump in the air. i wanted to shout. when he left it was all i could do to keep from following him. from leaving the bookstore behind to pursue excitement and adventure outside. to claw my way out from behind my smile and nametag and sensible clothes to growl, "hey yeah... i'm a wild thing, too." but there was another customer waiting.. and i had to say, "have a nice night."

"you too."

it could've been better.

so yeah.

*sigh*

inward...outward