When No One’s Watching

Some people are stubborn and will refuse to admit to this, but it’s a proven fact (by some scientist from some department of psychology that I don’t know and probably doesn’t exist) that people act much differently alone, away from other people. For example, my apartment was empty a few minutes ago, except for of course, myself, and my usual staying-in-my-bedroom-silently act became completely nonexistent. In other words, I rushed to the bottom left drawer of my desk, pulled out a mini portable speaker, and plugged it into my iTouch. Immediately, ‘Send On My Way,’ by Rusted Root (a really great song that I suggest you listen to) began to play loud and clear, ringing through my ears and vibrating my hands while I held the speaker. Music is my charge, and dancing is my function. Not that my dancing is really that great. ‘Dance’, for me at least, consists of bobbing my head from side to side, rapidly slamming my fingers on tables and walls, and swaying back and forth. That’s probably why I only do this when I’m alone.

My friend once argued to me that we should be “true to ourselves” and act the same way around everyone and no one. Of course, I had to disagree. I can be ‘true to myself’ and still act differently in separate situations. I take pleasure in my solitary satisfactions. Actually, let me put this in perspective for you. The majority of human beings have vision, blurred or clear, and we can perceive light and see objects, motion, and color all through our eyes. Those without this luxury, those who are blind, cannot. If I were to somehow grant a blind woman the gift of sight, she would value vision much more than someone who had always been able to see. It’s the same here. I won’t dance to old music or wear pink and purple slippers around other people, so when I have the chance to do so, I’m enthusiastic about it. If I did it all of the time, dancing would have a much lesser value to me. Being a different person while I’m alone is something that I value.

Please feel free to dance strange dances or paint odd paintings or write curious writings or sing peculiar songs. Hey, just in case you’re still feeling insecure about your own abnormalities, here’s another erratic thing that I do: I have a blog.

Untied Knots and Faded Pillowcases

I wrap my arms around the pillow; I embrace it. I hold on to it, and my fingers gradually curl into a claw-like shape, clenching onto the cloth with an icy grip. I hold this cushion as thought it were the only thing left on earth that I could ever cherish or own. The fraying purple ties that I had so neatly knotted together when I was no older than 6 years old still remain untied.

The faded yellow purple and pink flower designs bring back images of lake houses and birthday candles. Every summer has been tradition for my family (along with our cousins and grandparents) to rent out a lake house in the finger lakes in upstate New York. We’d all get out our fishing rods, sit by the dock, and just wait. We’d wait for the fish to bite and for our parents to call us back inside. But there’s always been this kind of constant waiting in my life, for something bigger, something new. As we watched the green water ripple and turn, I would lose myself to my own thoughts. But as the pillow I now clasp tears apart, my life remains still and unchanged. This presence of waiting remains.

When I look down at my hands, I can see red blisters and purple scabs from tripping on sidewalks and playing tag with my two sisters. I can see the small joys and hardships that have collected overtime to make up the entirety of my youth, an ongoing treasury of innocent stories.

I don’t sleep with this pillow anymore. It hasn’t felt my head on its cheap felt material for a painfully long amount of time. Instead, I sleep on blank pillows with white covers, and blankets and sheets that match. My shoes no longer light up at the bottom when I stamp my feet. My nails aren’t covered in scratched up green and purple shades of overused nail polishes. Everything is new. And everything has changed.

But still, I hold this souvenir from a journey that we call youth, and wait for this trip to end.

A Cure

There’s an uprising of an epidemic here on planet earth, and the efforts to cure our population and suppress the sickness have weakened into thin slivers of hopelessness. People’s brains are practically exploding with the oppression of this disease, and trust me when I say, it is passed down generations willingly. Yes I know, a sickness that can be controlled by sheer willpower should definitely have been vanquished by now! Regrettably, I am ashamed to say that it is not gone yet, and that I too am guilty of widening this wretched affliction.

Idiocy, denseness, fatuity, there are many different identifications for this condition, but I prefer to call it by it’s most honest and true name – ignorance.

ignorance
ˈɪɡn(ə)r(ə)ns/
noun
  1. lack of knowledge or information.
    “he acted in ignorance of basic procedures”

Ignorance is not a state of straight-up stupidity, but rather the lack of something- the lack of awareness.

I have succumbed to this sickness a countless number of times, ranging from shouting the words, ‘A Hindu temple!’ to forgetting that it’s best not to stick a fork in the toaster (I’m sharing some extremely embarrassing and private facts here, so please don’t laugh).

Almost every time three or four words pour out of my mouth I turn red from the unease that sets in, and I often find myself wincing in anticipation of more criticism of my inaccuracy and stupidity whenever I speak. It really isn’t that fun to be on edge during a casual factual conversation, trying to figure out what the heck these people are talking to me about.

My solution and my cure to this ignorance is to learn willingly. Knowledge is the opposite of ignorance, so the answer really, is to gather more knowledge, and to gather it willingly. Then, like a knight retrieving his jewels for the king, I will bring my newfound knowledge here, to this stronghold, to this palace, to my oddity of an odyssey.

Oh, and happy new year.