A few more things I don't know

...a dispatch from bewilderness

Trying to capture the self, as if it had edges, dimensions, limits, as if you could weigh or measure it, dress or undress it, download, upload, unload or replace it.

Selves don’t walk upstairs

Or fit in files or do things in five easy pieces or fourth gear. 

They don’t come in sizes or colors,

Can’t be defined or confined,

Can’t be packed and shipped, complete with good manners and extended warranty.

Selves are seamless and fluid.  They take the shape of the label you give them, like water or sand take the shape of a cup. 

They’re not organized by title and subject, don’t come with directions, can’t be boxed in one set, hung on one wall, baked in one cake.  They vibrate faster than hummingbird wings.

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

As a child, I sat in my room drawing perfect families. 

Then I worked in media, describing wonderful things in short, luscious sound bites, connecting, combining, cropping and cutting so everything fit just right.

I knew where to start, how to end and where to go in between.  I knew how many words I needed, the sound of the words, the size of the type.  I could take people I didn’t know to places I hadn’t seen.

Places they would love – tucked between perfect covers, like wrapping at Christmas, beribboned and gleaming under the tree.

Then things flipped into secret code. Something strange and surprising. No, a big bunch of somethings under the label of “Don’t get hit by a drunk with a truck.” Followed by dang times ten, I did get hit by a drunk. Followed by dang times ten billion, let’s rebuild.”

So what is a self?  Is it something sent in attachments, something constructed with photographs, something lost or found -- or woven with words.  Briefly rugged, robust, endearing, enduring. Then floating, fleeting, sparkling, gone.

My days are full of birds and words and light I want to remember and share.  I try to think like a forest. A tree. A leaf. A bud. A bird.