Things make me sad, like dogs without homes, dogs that find homes and then go homeless, again. I volunteer in rescue. I learned a long time ago that it is never enough, that I -- just me -- am never enough. I see my nephews, ages 10 and 7. They love their dogs. Their dogs, purebred (from a breeder), one of whom just died of heart disease, the other of whom suffers from the disease. Every Thanksgiving, the boys announce that they are grateful for their dogs, and this, too, makes me sad, because soon both dogs will be gone and then for what will my nephews be grateful? I am sad in advance of their inevitable sadness.
I don’t know that I could stomach being young right now, though I’m sure that with every new generation, the generation before says the same thing: that it is glad it is already done growing. Though, of course, there’s that thing: we’re never really done growing. Our noses grow and so does our fear. Maybe this newest generation faces a particularly heinous set of issues and problems, but the fear just arises from the ashes of these problems like a phoenix too frightened to fly -- and then, of course, it grows. The fear, seemingly innocuous, has been named: re-generation. Because we’ve mucked it up so badly, that we need a re-do.
Things make me sad, like the thought of all the thoughts I cannot allow myself to have. Like all the room I do not have in my heart for hate, that room is filled in others’ hearts and minds with vitriol, anger, despair, resentment, judgment. I do not try to understand because I fear that trying to understand will rid me of some of my hatelessness. I am not blameless, but every day I try to forgive a little more. It helps to heal me, this letting go of bitterness.
Once, in Miami, I met a Shaman. He was a waiter at a fine restaurant. He knew my friend, let’s call her Josephine, that I first met in Kindergarten. He was very nice and he brought my then-boyfriend (now fiancee) and I complimentary cookies for dessert. My boyfriend ordered a nice bottle of wine and we drank all of it. After my second glass of wine, I was chatting loosely with the Shaman and I remarked that I “hated” something, not Josephine, though I do not recall what. He was unapologetically frightened. The shaman, I mean. He left our table too quickly, scurrying away like a rat with a secret. I remember that moment so well, because it was the moment that I learned about words for the first time. And I have two advanced degrees in english. But that was the moment that I learned something they didn’t teach me in creative writing class: words, those limp swords, when properly manipulated, can cut as sharply as any samurai blade.
Words make me sad. Words make me hate. I hate words.
When my brother finished high school, four years before I did, the valedictorian of his graduating class broadly announced during her valedictory speech: “I Love Words.” I still remember how much I loved her words about loving words, now delivered twenty years ago. I can still hear the pause in her voice after I and Love and Words. It was a simple, declarative sentence that captured what I, then 14, about to enter high school, and an aspiring writer, felt. Ironically, I’d not been able to summarize my sentiment as succinctly. I wasn’t jealous. I was inspired!
Words make me love words even more.
Words are empty. People are filled with empty promises. Promises are filled with empty dreams. Dreams are filled with empty people. I dropped my bananas foster doll out my father’s car window when I was three. I could not grip it well enough in my doughy, pudgy, tiny fist. I asked him to pull over so that I might retrieve that beloved doll. He refused. He had somewhere to be. Maybe it’s silly to still be bitter about bananas foster. I don’t even like that particular dessert. I find myself wondering about her, sometimes: alone beside the highway, awaiting my return.
Words. Love.
The biggest culprit is I Love You. Maybe because the statement is overused. Maybe it has lost some cache, what with the advent of emoticons and symbols and you shortened to u. Maybe because what does it mean, anyway? How can one know, with the rampant over-misuse and abuse of cliches? To be in love is a sickness, a disease. Love grows, like a fungus or a weed. Love blossoms, like a flower, which then promptly dies. You are “in love” -- and also in debt, in vogue (for the moment), in vitro, inbox, and in trouble. Each has an implied counterpoint -- an “out.” If you’re in love, doesn’t that imply that one day you’ll be out of love?
Words, words, words.
I hate words. Every day, I hate wordsmiths, and rhetoricians, and pedagogians that craft brilliant essays and articles on topics about which I strongly disagree and about which I (usually) know very little. Big words make me feel small and inadequate. I deal in words, so this can be quite frustrating. The first day of graduate school, I had to go home after rhetoric class and google “pedagogy.” I should have known then what I know now: I will never know enough. I will never outwit google, obviously, but I will never outwit my own best versions of myself, either: me on two glasses of wine, or 14-year-old-me who was so eager to be inspired, or the wide-eyed and buttery-fingered little girl who was unwilling to be disappointed despite her disappointment.
Things make me sad, like dogs who suffer. Every day, I try not to let them. And hate. Every day, I try not to. With words. I will use my words, the building blocks of language - because. Love. Honor. Obey. Those are words, too.
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