inreaction

as my paycheck is placed back in the spine of a novel in an odd statement of priority, i reflect on this lazy day’s events. and, obviously, i write.

among the strongest fascinations that grip me, identification is a process which has unimaginable [yet far more actual than visceral] consequences.

as one who fancies himself some sort of writer, i have run [have ran?] into several problems regarding identification of late.

for one, i recently wrote a column regarding a new pentagon policy. as the daily bruin is published online, it can be read all-over the world. i didn’t realize that is is.

regardless, a soldier in iraq did read my article, and a lengthy response was delivered to my inbox a mere day later. to think some still doubt the power of technology.

[a marker of my own ignorance: i don't know if i was more surprised by the fact that the soldier so vehemently disagreed with my position, or by his extreme eloquence.]

admittedly, i have no reason to write on the subject. i am not a soldier, nor do i even have any close friends who are. the only things soldiers and i have in common are our american citizenship [most soldiers], and our apparent concern for this nation’s well being.

but i wrote the article. i did do a great deal of research, but not enough to divorce myself from my original identification with the story. the news that the military banned some popular social networking sites from their network struck me, as an amateur journalist, as a clear invasion into soldier’s leisure time and first amendment rights [albeit a legal form of doing so].

what i did not realize is that a soldier would identify with the story in a far different [some would say more valid] way.

it speaks strongly to what i will hesitantly call the myth of fact, and the paramount nature of interpretation. we saw the same story [me in print, him in life], and felt so differently that it is hard for even our most logical arguments to play off of another.

it also speaks to how personal an action interpretation is. i never would have thought a soldier would so strongly defend a decision that limits his ability to communicate with the world. and yet, i can tell [by the earnest candor of his emails] that he cares.

interesting identification number two revolves around alison bechdel’s graphic novel fun home. but since my in reactions are getting “far too long,” i shall type that up another day.

[i just saw spoken word like mad and remembered why i have faith in the word]

it’s been so long i’ve forgotten how to start.

but really all we’re ever doing is remembering how to start. every time our minds slip back into remembrance, we take time to call back something we knew–maybe its familiarity we look for, maybe it’s this newness, and it’s sweet decadence. regardless of our ignorance or our malice or our sweetness, we try to find that which we knew. whether we’re stroking the curve of another’s back or we’re dancing without reason or we’re frantically throwing vocals into reciting words–its all in calling back.

so i remember. and it comes back as i remember that i dislike typing words that i wish i was writing with messy ink blots and unlined notebooks–but sometimes we remember too late. because really, we are too late. we remember too late.

it’s like growing up. we forget that we’re doing it. we forget who defined us when we were kids–who we wanted to be in hopes of being something older–something other–than who we were. we forget how old college kids looked by the time we were freshmen. we forget–because it’s easier than remembering–what we wanted until, often, its too late to find it.

but some days we remember. it wasn’t until after three or four performances that i remembered why i wrote so much. i could say realize but what is realizing something other than remembering what we knew when we were kids? “i realized i love her?” no–i knew it. i knew it the first time i saw her without others around her–i saw that what i thought possible, what intrigued, was real–i remembered to trust myself.

i remembered why i disliked the term “growing up”–so pathetically ironic. employing metonymy to use a childish phrase to refer to losing all that we acquired by middle school. learning to tie shoes so we could trip with more than just bare feet. learning to spell so we could realize that words are only as powerful as the belief with which we speak them. reading so much that we needed glasses–only to realize that some people’s eyes are far too empty.

we’ll get even older, and then what? we’ll need not only those shoes but walkers. not only those words but earpieces to hear them. not only those glasses–but magnifying glasses beyond those perched on the bridges of our noses on faces with wrinkles some will hate while someone once told us that they’re only where smiles were. it’s funny–no, it’s sickening–that the day we took our magnifying glasses off of ants on our sun baked driveways and onto each other–burning eyes turning people not just into “mature” friends, but into races and genders to be separated [even when lying intertwined]–was the day we grew up in this world.

but we did. and we are. we’re learning and we’re growing. some doing both fast than others, some not doing either at all. some of us sit in class all day–every day–but that’s the problem. we sit. we absorb facts and sometimes we even imagine how it could be “on the other side,” but we don’t learn. we can’t always. and somedays, we shouldn’t.

we can absorb facts and we can grow. we can stretch our minds to possibilities–gender equality, racial equality, waist-size equality, yourmotherboughtyouabenzandminedidn’t equality–but really we shouldn’t have to. we shouldn’t have to learn tolerance. we shouldn’t have to learn acceptance.

because we had it. we had it when we noticed slanted eyes and darker skin and bushy eyebrows–when we wondered what these changes were but before we racialized and were racialized–before our minds were stretched, not to include these differences [they were readily accepted as slanted eyes did not mean anything more than another playmate], but to create room for the negative associations we developed.

we shouldn’t have to learn. but we do.

all of us are growing, we have grown. the world has grown up. it’s time for us to remember what it was before it did.

this may be the first time i’ve ever been fully awake at 8:17 a.m. since i came to college.

but then again, the past few weeks have played witness to a slew of new sensations, thoughts, and realized potentials. even today began a way it hasn’t before–on a mattress with no sheets on it, with two cards and a phone that had somehow been put on silent in the left front pocket of jeans that had been worn for 24 hours.

sheesh. it’s been a while since i’ve written. it’s odd–i’ve been inspired, inspired to work harder, stay awake longer, sleep at the right times, to be nice–and yet i’m uninspired to do anything that seems extraneous to living. it’s clear that sentences like the one i just wrote are short on both grammar and meaning, but perhaps i mean to say that i feel i’ve found a sense of clarity that is reassuring in its terrific all-encompassing-ness.

with such calm comes a sense of excitement that i can’t really say i knew anything about before it crept under my sheets, smiled its way past the barriers i used to use smiles to uphold, and left a scent that would resolve any petty tension. what scares me is a sort of staggering vulnerability, comfort in falling in a manner characterized by scarcity of control. what calms me is a bit too lengthy / complex / would take too many slashes to try and figure out.

there’s no need to delude oneself–there are still many a thing i have to figure out. i am, after all, alive and eighteen. not everything in the entire world–or even in the .0000000000000000201 percent of it that might be “mine”–is glossy photo perfect. but there is a sense that all of–school, a coming summer of living at home, a future, monetary crises–is manageable.

The feeling of understanding
Is very rare
For someone like me, it’s hard to
Find somebody to care
She’s got a way about her
Changes everything
She’s got a way about her
She’s my sweet little thing
Sweet little thing

Makin’ love with her indie rock
Playin’ on the stereo
Holdin’ hands goin’ down the road
When she drives me home
She’s got a magic about her
Makes me wanna sing
She’s got a magic about her
She’s my sweet little thing
Sweet little thing
She’s my sweet little thing

Spent the day layin’ in her bed
My nose against hers
Later we went for a drive
Didn’t know where we were
Man, I never felt so alive

Nobody gets the girl
But baby, I do
Nobody gets me either
But she sees through
She’s got a glow around her
Shines on everything
She’s got a glow around her
She’s my sweet little thing
Sweet little thing
She’s my sweet little thing
She’s my sweet little thing