Unfortunately for you, reader, I adore metaphors. They are especially problematic when one is as indecisive a person as me. But I need them, I draw life from them, because often I cannot put into words exactly what I need to say and then a metaphor swoops in, descending from my brain or a friend or the internet or a song and it seems about right. I might cling too tightly to it. If I hold it up to the light, it might withstand my scrutiny, or it might not. But undoubtedly if I don’t scrutinize, it will hollow itself out and disintegrate right in front of my eyes in really uncomfortable ways: I’ll use it inappropriately in a social setting, casual conversation, a piece of writing that I want the world to recognize as remarkable…and then be humbled by it’s absurdity. No metaphor is perfect; I should probably be more gentle with them, let them be what they are without expecting absolute truth.
So with that, I’ll now leap into a metaphor, mixed and convoluted and fulfilling very poorly other literary devices I should have better sense than to employ at 3:59 am: this keyboard is going to help me chip away one morsel of concrete at a time until, like Andy in Shawshank Redemption, I have escaped my cell and made my way to a carefree, well-financed life on the sunny beaches of Mexico.
That was way too dramatic. Let me try again.
Tonight I gathered for food and connection, no other agenda, with the best people you can imagine, and I hope we all know these people: lovelies who make you feel at home in your skin, who listen while tuning out as many distractions as they can, who bring their whole selves, who laugh with you because life is absurd. In this particular group was one dear friend of decades, two dears that are reaching the decade mark (surpassed it?), one I had only seen but never met, and one acquaintance who I’ve spent time with but have never gotten to know very well, and apparently our kids were in French class together. This last woman described her sister-in-law — a larger-than-life character who has reinvented herself many times over, ping-ponged across the continent and stormed through marriages, nurtured her whims and considerable gifts through careers spanning almost every genre you can imagine, brushed up against celebrity and status in her whirlwind path, and, eventually we arrive at the part where we learn she’s also a really nice person. We were enraptured by this story — the subject and the skillful telling — with hearty guffaws (nobody guffaws anymore, have you noticed? yet I assure you, there was guffawing) and wide eyes.
My internal response? I am inferior. What have I been doing with my life, that nobody could tell a story about me like this woman’s story? When have I embarked on such intense adventure? What makes my life worthy, and worth sharing? Then I snapped back into focus, deciding that particular shame needed to be stuffed back down for the moment so I could pay attention to my friends, resolving to take it out when I’m good and ready to see it for what it is.
When indeed I am ready, which I guess is now, I will start to see the holes in my harsh judgment. I don’t know the shape of those openings yet — pinpricks and cracks and chasms beckoning me with their husky shadows toward whatever lies underneath — but I determined long ago that language is my tool for working away at the edges. It’s simply time to pick up this hammer and commence.
Bleary-eyed, I’m sure I haven’t properly obsessed over these words yet so as to avoid future regret, but here they are. Chip, chip.
