I am a wisher. I work hard at it. Really. If wishing was a sport I would be one of those guys that has all the gear: the hundred dollar sweat-wicking undershirt, the helmet made out of titanium, the little gloves with the fingers cut out. I know it sounds absurd, but it's true. In a way I have made a sport out of wishing.
I've been this way since I was a little girl, finding ways to wish on anything. Maybe it's partially a belief in something magic, or the hope that if we want something badly enough we must be able to influence the world.
And there's an abundance of things to wish on if you're looking: shooting stars, dandelions, four leaf clovers, numbers, candles, scraps of paper.
But lately I've been wondering what it might feel like to let those wishes go. I've always thought that hope was the greatest virtue, the thing you must hold onto until the end. But maybe there's more beauty and grace in the act of letting go.
I kind of like the image it evokes:
My hand holds onto a string; at the end of it floats a big white balloon. With the smallest movement, I open my fingers and that ball of hope floats off into the sky. Gone. And here I stand, empty, but free.
Today I'd like to walk those damp streets
in a thin cotton dress
as soft as well worn sheets.
I'd take your arm as we crossed
the Rialto and turn the corner
to our hotel
looking up at the bright
flags of clothing hanging
against the gray sky.
And later as we stand in
the Piazza San Marco
with the pigeons swarming
around your arms and head.
I promise to look only at you,
no longer peering
over your shoulder
past the crowd of onlookers
towards the boats in the distance
wondering if I might
catch a glimpse of
somebody that I used to know.
Yes, I admit it, I'm one of those people who hates going out of the house without a little make up on. But that doesn't mean that I'm not afraid to show my ugly side every now and then. No, I'm not talking about the dark circles under my eyes or the way my nose gets really red in the morning. I mean the ugly side that doesn't show; the prideful, the insecure, the scared me.
Some of my favorite people in the world are the ones who wear their faults proudly instead of trying to hide them. Yes, maybe they end up sticking their foot in their mouth every once in a while. Maybe they end up looking stupid, or rude, or ungrateful. But it's those people who show their faults who also show their humanity.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather be friends with someone real and flawed and human, than someone who wants me to believe that they're perfect.
What about you? Are you afraid to let the ugly side show or do you run out of the house flapping it behind you, banners waving?
Here's a fun triptych that I recently finished.
You wear yourself like a suit,
stiff, over laundered.
It hangs on you, this new self,
baggy in the chest, too wide
across the shoulders.
You must have admired it
on the hanger,
held it out in front of you,
watching the way
the expensive thread caught the light.
This is who I am now,
you thought.
Not that old version
who danced with
wicker basket hats
and licked the plate
after a particularly delicous meal.
So you slipped it on and set
the other aside, next to
the wide seventies ties and
the sneakers worn thin
across the toes.
But it's too late to change back now.
If you discard this new suit
I promise not to laugh
while you stand naked,
pale skin showing
who you really are.
As a person with the memory capacity of an ant, I often dream of what it would be like to remember things. I'm related to a number of people who can not only remember the exact dinner that they ate on a trip to San Francisco ten years ago, but what they were wearing, and the conversation that they had while they were eating (Yes, Tanya, I'm talking about you!). I, on the other hand, have trouble remembering the names of my children.
So maybe I was a bit more eager than a normal person to read MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. If there was a trick to remembering inside its pages, I wanted to learn it, stat, before I forgot anything else.
Although I might not have learned a magic recipe for remembering by reading Foer's book, I did come away with a great understanding of how and why we remember and thoroughly enjoyed his exploration of the mind as well as the goofy world of the USA Memory Championships. The ancient techniques of using a Memory Palace, which Foer describes in some detail, are not only beautiful metaphorically, but made me itch to try out. I love the image of strolling through the elegant estates inside my mind and carefully placing my memories inside their sunlit rooms.
One of my favorite phrases in the whole word is "What if?" These are the words that wriggle into my brain while I'm driving, showering, falling asleep; when I read an interesting magazine article or hear an intriguing interview on the radio. They are the trigger for almost every story I've ever wanted to tell, the first two words that begin it all.
What if...
