Metaphors, ugly socks, walking in the snow, and how to be frustratingly lovely.

[KB.]

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.”

~James Earl Jones

So today someone told me that all they know of me is from the stories I write. They called them brilliant. Then they said it made them think I am either a genius or a certified wacko.

I’ve been called both, plenty of times, more often a wacko than a genius. But every genius is a wacko. Not every wacko is a genius. I’m not smarter than anyone else. Well I am but I’m trying to be humble. I suck at it. I may be a genius in certain areas if you stretch the definition of the word to its absolute breaking point. Being a wacko comes easy.

The stories come here and there. They are always in my head. All of them at once. So little room left up there. I don’t know if anything I write is any more profound or brilliant than what you think every day. I just, on occasion, am able to put them onto paper. I add a little alliteration and maybe a useless metaphor is all. I dress it up. I use sentence fragments because it sounds like I do when I talk. I write like I talk when I am allowed to talk without interruption. Rare event.

The stories mainly come when I am in the middle of some amazing event of my life.

“Mainly I've been back to my books and writings and being nice and quiet and lazy. As I'm writing this, the radio says there's a foot of snow falling on Long Island. I really love snow and wish I could take a long walk in it right now.”

~Kerouac

It is a metaphor. The radio says there is a foot of snow on Long island. He loves snow and wishes he could take a long walk in it right now.

Let me explain it in my terms. When I write something, not everything, but certain things it is me taking a long walk in the snow. I love the snow too and the longer I can walk in it the better. Metaphor. I could give a **** less about walking in the snow. My feet get cold. When I write something I can walk along in the snow but I’ve got a couple pairs of my “ugly” socks on under my boots. My feet are warm and dry. I’m comfortable. I can enjoy the snow without my feet getting cold. Metaphor. I can sit here and write while I listen to music and the thoughts running through my head are in some sense of order. Sort of. They are comfortable.

I can enjoy what happened yesterday.

I was never good at writing about the future. I do okay on fiction but I fail miserably as a fortune teller. Fortune cookies do a much better job with far fewer words. But. I can write about that drive earlier in the week, the old books I read, or pouting when a touch is cut short and I can enjoy it. I can walk in it without my feet getting cold.

I am convoluted. Nothing is simple with me. It is all intricately involved. It all fits together. It makes sense. Even if only to me. No matter how convoluted it may seem to you it makes sense to me. I’m just trying to explain it. I never asked for my head to be so loud with thought or for my failure to stay angry for any amount of time to be misconstrued as being moody to the point of armchair diagnosed bipolar disorder. I’m as ****ing sane as they come. I’m just the last one that is so. Which makes me crazy.

So when those moments come to me I write. I write about how a baby reaching out for me changed my life and how watching someone I loved only love me when they were drunk turned me sober. I write about Odysseus and his ten year long journey home. How he was lead by Muses and Sirens. I wrote about my ten years of rambling around from place to place only to be led home by the same. How a man will do everything he can to get his tired ass back home. I wrote about drives taken 14 years ago and this week. How they involved the same things and led to the same outcomes eventually. That no matter you can’t see past the headlights you can still get where you are going.

I write about my family and how much they mean and meant to me. I wrote about music and the images a song can bring to life in our heads.

I write about the people that mean the most to me. I write for the same. I want You to know the insides of me. I was writing for you before I even knew you existed. It is up to you to decide who you is.

I’m just a guy in his early thirties who works retail. I’ve never been married and I don’t have any kids. I’ve never saved anyone’s life or discovered a new species of animal. I’ll never be rich or satisfied. I’ll be loud and opinionated forever. I’ll not be on any Dean’s list or published in The New Yorker. No matter how much I wish it would happen Rolling Stone is not going to pay me to drive around from small town to small town writing stories about the people I meet on my way. You’ll have to settle for reading about yourselves. I do that for free.

Genius or certified wacko. What does it matter in the end? Two more adjectives to add to the list. I’m both at different times of the day. Depending.

The little things tell a lot. Last night I was sitting next to what has to be the most frustratingly lovely woman I have ever known. We were watching House and this dialogue came across the speakers, “You frustrate me because you never think you are wrong. What frustrates me more is that you are almost always right.” He grinned, and when she made a face and pointed at me I grinned too.

Frustratingly lovely. You have to take something, anything, from the people you hold dear in life. You have to use those relationships to learn things about yourself that you would never figure out on your own. She makes me look at myself in a different way. I’ve never admitted I was wrong about **** until about three months ago. It was easy. I’ve never taken a moment and thought I might be thinking too much. I do. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop but I can realize that I am thinking too much. Convoluted I told you. Not so easy.

No one ever had the patience to try and get me to do those things. They either gave up on it or accepted it for what it is. Usually they gave up and the acceptance came afterwards. Maybe I needed someone to say, “Shut up you talk too much.” (That isn’t a free ride to do it all the time mind you. I’m sensitive.) So that I would eventually shut up, a little, and listen for a change. I can remember everything that was said to me but I rarely ever heard them. I hear you. Not always but more often than not and if led like a blind man to the door I can hear even more.

So, yeah, it is like walking through the snow with two pair of socks on under my boots. Feet warm and dry. Comfortable. Even if one day I find myself barefoot in a blizzard I can still remember when it was warm.

Kevin

[abbey]

So, yeah, it is like walking through the snow with two pair of socks on under my boots. Feet warm and dry. Comfortable. Even if one day I find myself barefoot in a blizzard I can still remember when it was warm.

:-6

Good post KB