Humans are funny.
Welcome back to my brain. I still can't seem to figure out in my head whether or not I find blogging to be an inherently egotistical enterprise. But sometimes I like the practice of forming sentences, picking out words and trying to explain things the way I would want to convey ideas to friends. There are so many subtle nuances in a sentence, a letter, an email or a quick message. Here, in a blog, brevity, time constraints or manual/physical challenges are not as much of a hindrance to approrpiate grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalization. That's why I'm so hesitant here. You have every right to believe that each idea, suggestion, claim or value judgement expressed are well thought out and firm. There's also no excuse for anything short of perfect, unblemished, prose because lord knows I hate me some typo-ed, misspelled, un-readable mess. The other night I was sitting with Harmony on her bed and I noticed that the first draft of an essay she'd written had had its first paragraph slashed and she showed me the comment. She performed an excellent Art History professor accent and read "I call this clearing your throat - get rid of it." That's what this paragraph is, I believe, a quick little philosophical throat clearing.
I've been thinking about people a lot lately. They're so funny. Everyone on this planet seems to have a vastly different idea of what they're put on Earth for, how to live a fulfilling life and the appropriate way to interact with other humans. Now, this is a good thing, this realization. I think it's making me a lot more at peace with the world in a certain kind of way. Each person has an unfathomable set of thought processes that determine the way that they think a life is lived. There are so many extremely different ways of life, even just in our country, state or zip code. And I think I truly believe that we are mostly powerless when it comes to preventing or promoting any one culture from being assigned associations for better or worse. That doesn't mean that apathy is the only logical response to this belief because certainly I admire activist minorities righting undue wrongs. What I mean is that it all boils down to the soul within each person and whether or not, if put in front of a different person from themselves, they will exhibit suspicion, fear, aggression, hostitlity and protective resistance, or if they show openness, warmth, curiosity, encouragement and empathy.
I could try to have a life-changing conversation with as many hatefully ignorant, actively opposed to homosexuality, abortion and obscenity, Republicans as I can in one lifetime, but it would be wasting my breath. Maybe I would get a better understanding of where they were coming from after a few interactions but it seems to me that just knowing there's almost no use gives me the ability to acknowledge the variation in people's social consciousness as a wonder of life to appreciate, explore and study more intently. Somehow I came to this from a recent fascination with eyes and eye contact.
When you live in a city there are thousands of opportunities each week to pass strangers, sometimes in large public spaces and other times in intimate more private spaces, and look into their eyes. However, a human's willingness and ability to make this eye contact with a human, dressed in clothes and maybe carrying some things, other than themselves is one of the most amazing phenomena I can think of. Example: I work at this kitchen store, and we have a rest room that pretty much anyone in Portland could use, if they wished to enter into our retail establishment. And here comes a probably 17 year old white boy, in all black, ultra baggy pants with some kind of straps dangling or connected to other locations on the leg of the pant, black t-shirt, probably 5'6" and 140 pounds so a little solid, some crazy black backpack and I think some fingers-cut-off gloves and asks, with the most puppy dog sweetness in his eyes, if he can use the bathroom. "Sure," I said, "there's a key right over there that you can grab." He thanked me and used it, and put it back on the counter when he was finished with an equally sweet countenance and salutation.
In a matter of minutes I had made an unnecessary assumption that he was going to be weirdly innapropriate or a nuisance to the functioning of the store, that he would reek and that he might hate on gay people; to have it demolished. I love it. I stand at a door for about four to six hours a week and greet people and bid them a good day on their way out. You would not believe the variation of response I get. I love it when strangers ask each other how they're doing. Ellen Degeneres has performed some pretty funny stand up about this topic: since we're usually so on-the-move we tend only to go as deep as "How are you?" "Good, you?" "Great thanks." It's funny to think of responding to that question differently: "Well, funny, because, now that you ask me, I'm a little depressed and I think I might benefit from some therapy. Do you know any good ones specializing in young gay men?"
But the eyes really have it. There are so many fascinating eye-contact experience opportunities downtown, on the bus, Hawthorne on a busy afternoon, in the Kaboodle, in a mall of any kind, in a bar or club, even on my bike. Beyond that there's the rich resource of your friends' eyes to wallow in. It's so interesting how drugs and alcohol effect the clarity and nature of eye contact. When you run into a friend at a party and their eyes are halfway shut, glazed over and somehow clouded, you can probably safely assume they won't remember running into you and having an hour-long conversation, or that they intiated a makeout session. Oppositely when you bump into a friend and their eyes don't stay in one spot for more than two seconds or they're engaging your eyes but there's no receptive warmth, there's only cool calculation until the next time they get to talk, I can realize that this is a friend who I might not want to invest too much time or energy in.
Me personally? I'm realizing that for some reason, at the same time that I'm truly inspired by the range of eye contact permutations and effects, I'm mildly terrified of making it myself. Primarily, of course, with boys that I think are really cute and that I want them to want me back, but also with straight males and older ladies altogether. Also, sometimes with the best of friends because I'm unsure of the connotations that arrise from my speech and phrasing. I think what it is is that I am aware that my eyes are highly communicative and for the most part, I'm incapable of harnessing them. So I divert my eyes and try to speak with the rest of my face. I've been told that I speak volumes with my eyebrows. It makes me think that people who draw it out of me, who really get my eyes and not just body language, are the real keepers. Only then, when you're communicating to another person with all of your physical faculties (which, come to think of it, would make sense as to why I suspect the best sex would be intensely pleasurable physical satisfaction equal to your ocularly engaged, and therefore psychologically engaged, pleasure) are you truly living the human experience. Most of the other times you're resisting it and keeping it brief and painless.
Congratulations to you, friend, if you have read thus far. And thank you for caring about the words I have to spew foreward. Please do not take any of these statements, thoughts, reflections, ideas or suggestions very seriously. I have too many thoughts in my head at all times. This is a productive way of clearing some out to make space for some new stuff.
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