Saturday, 14 February 2009

• I Am...

  ... a mixture between the profound and the mundane that becomes something close to startling or irritating, dependent upon whom I am speaking with at the time. I often feel as though I am on the very verge of some astonishing thought or idea, usually when I am just about to wander into sleep, or when I am writing, or when I am curled up reading Tom Robbins in a blissfully relaxing bubble bath, as was the case today.

  Distracted by the bubbles crackling like the breathing of a man with fluid in his lungs - an analogy that simultaneously makes me feel less lonely and less hygenic - as they disappear, unveiling the most private bits of my flesh, the bits that we hide from each other because it is, frankly, unsafe to show them, I begin to wonder what it means to be truly exposed.

  This physical body, of course, means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things, and yet we do everything we can to protect it. In a sense we are not as safe with our bodies as we could be, at least not in a world of one-night stands, base-jumping, and excessive body piercing. My body is my temple has become the mantra of cowards, who hide away in their biblical verses or pseudo-spiritual nonsense, or hell, just plain vanity, afraid to damage any bit of themselves, afraid to give any of themselves away to anything more than their individual comfort.

  Yes, darling, your body is your temple, but it worships a defunct religion. Everyone else is out painting themselves with tattoos and falling asleep beside someone they barely know and may never see again. Despicable? Perhaps. But it's also real; more real than your little metaphor, I'm afraid.

  I suppose I can't talk, having never experienced the most carnal of all our urges. I've never fucked anybody, never made love. I've been physically close to people and done things that I would consider intimate, but they were rather carefully executed. I'm certainly not the type who could be picked up in a bar with a couple shots of tequila and a remark about my father's potential past career in Grand Theft Cellestial - I would like to point out now that anyone who is seeing stars in my eyes has probably partaken in some serious harsh peyote. My eyes are more like stones than stars. Poetry is lost on the drunk and horny.

  I am also disinclined to pass judgement because the only real adventures I've ever been on are the sorts of spontaneous excursions that Jodi Picoult might right about in her next novel - apple-picking, flea markets. I once jumped into a pond at night in the middle of October in my underwear in front of three boys I'd known since the 4th grade. None of them jumped in after me, so I got to be the most adventurous, by comparison. It's the romantic in me that thinks perhaps they look on me with awe. Perhaps they say to themselves, That girl - she's gotta be the craziest girl I ever met.

  They're quite mistaken, if that's the case. Had I been really crazy, no underwear would have been involved. The truth is, the only fear I had to overcome was the fear of being cold, and perhaps getting bit by a fish.

  Most of us would like to say our hearts are guarded more than our bodies, and maybe that's true. It's become a bit of a cliche to have walls up around yourself, keeping people out, but I suppose it's true. People are afraid to fall in love, to care, to be cared about. Silly, really, as it's the greatest thing that we can possibly do.

  You might consider yourself a philosopher, oh, Xanga Reader, a poet perhaps, but if you haven't yet devoted yourself to creating perfect love (to paraphrase the afforementioned Tom Robbins) with everyone around you, then you haven't philosiphized anything of any great importance. Buddha would be in tears to imagine it, I'm sure. Though I'm not sure that much could make the Great Man cry - he knows how it goes, and he's aware of your great bretrayal to your own very natures. I like to think it makes him laugh, the way a father laughs at the mistakes of his young children, as opposed to cry.

  I am not entirely sure what any of this means, but it's what happens after reading Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas and watching the bubbles disappear.

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