I'm sorry, part one
...Or on becoming "us."
Everything connects. The iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones and the neurons in our brain were formed from stars that burst billions of years ago — and turned into us.
I watched a documentary. It showed a dying star in its last gasp of light. It looked like an eye, an iris, a nipple, an apple, a womb, a tomb, a portal in space.
Once I nursed my daughter. Before that I sheltered her in my womb. Some might say we traveled intergalactic distances to briefly share the same heart. My heart was her heart then. It pumped our blood.
Here are some things I am sorry about. I was hit by a truck. The damage messed up my brain. Brain-damaged former ghosts can’t talk or walk or read or write. We don’t know what will happen in the event of anything, don’t know the secret to anything, can’t explain, describe, debate, opine, design anything. I am sorry about that.
I’m a former freelance ghost. This brings me to a rousing rendition of "one of these things is not like the other" from Sesame Street, although I don't know why.
I am sorry about heartbreaks, setbacks, layoffs, blowups, breakups, breakdowns, shakedowns, shutdowns, lies, excuses, accidents, and other events that qualify as Bad Things. I'm sorry that Timothée Chalamet murdered someone in a movie. I’m sorry I forgot the name of the movie.
I am sorry that certain billionaires/gazillionaires seem to hate social security. Maybe it's because it provides credibility that government can work for people and society.
That would provide credibility for other government programs those same gazillionaires hate even more, like regulating their pollution and breaking up their monopolies.
Billionaires/gazillionaires know that for Social Security to survive, they will have to pay the same percentage of their income into it as people who work at McDonalds.
Billionaires/gazillionaires also hate Sesame Street, PBS, NPR, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS and they’re suing some of them. Make that a lot of them.
Some say the main elements of storytelling are 5 questions and the letter W. Who, what, where, when, and why. If you are brain injured, the answers are you don’t know who, you don’t know what, you don’t know where or when or why.
Or you know but can’t find words. Unless you get better. Then sometimes you can. This post is about rebuilding. Every post I write is about rebuilding.
Every post I write is about rebuilding.
I love this. Thank you
J, your clear, lucid prose is a gift and an inspiration to us all. It reminds me of Al Hirt, who re-learned how to play the trumpet after he was hit in his mouth by a thrown brick. He regained his playing skills, just as you have triumphed over cruel adversity and established yourself as a gifted writer.