Don’t ask George

Do you ever have one of those moments in which you are attempting with all of your might to convey something to another human being but are entirely aware (as you are speaking) that this person has absolutely no idea what you are saying, and you may as well be speaking Hungarian?

Yes, well, yesterday this happened to me. The irony was, I was in a grocery store talking to a produce guy about a type of vegetable. We’ll call him George.

Me: “Excuse me sir, sorry to bother, but do you have any microgreens?”

George (the produce man) turns to look at me from his produce ladder and is squinting very hard, like my face is made of the sun and burning his eyes to look at.

“Michael-greens? No, I don’t have any of those”

I try not to laugh at this and pull down the mask covering my face so that he can hear me more clearly.

“Oh no, MICROGREENS.”

At this point George is squinting at me even harder and looking like I just asked him where they keep the asbestos and nuclear weapons.

“Yeah we don’t have those”

He says this very carefully whilst looking at me out of the corner of my eye as if incredibly suspicious about what I plan to do with said greens.

I thank him and start to walk away, but George yells again after me

“what the hell are those?”

“oh, um, they’re sort of like baby plants, they are edible”

Very very blank stare. I try again.

“Um, you know, like baby spinach kinda, but-”

“Oh spinach is over there”

He points abruptly towards the spinach, almost falling off his ladder. I sigh.

“Well, it’s actually not spinach exactly, but no worries, it’s fine. Thanks!”

I start to walk away and hope the delirious conversation has ended when I hear him call out to a fellow employee

“Hey, Charlie, do you know what Michael Greens are?”

Oh George.

Time Eclipse

It’s Sunday. We are sitting outside on our back porch and i’m cutting Mike’s hair while the dogs are running around like Tasmanian devils. I am doing my best not to chop off his ear while simultaneously trying to explain the paradox of choice theory and not get trampled by the cow dogs . Suddenly we hear a massive explosion and my cutter goes dead, along with everything else in our general vicinity.

I look at Mike’s hair, nearly finished, and am sorta disappointed it hadn’t happened a few minutes earlier so he’d would be stuck with half a head for a while. While I find great amusement in this thought, I’m really not sure why.

Then, Instead of acting like normal people and going out to find something to eat because the dinner cooking in the oven has ceased it’s cooking, we hop into the car with the dogs and drive around to find the source of the explosion.

Like for, you know, fun.

By the time we get back the power comes back on and I’m just a little sad I didn’t get a chance to write by candlelight for a while. Because as we all know, there is such a big difference between choosing to do something and having to because you otherwise can’t and maybe you sort of don’t want to choose. Hence the ironic aforementioned theory.

Lights flicker back on and ceiling fans start whirring again, the city back on it’s feet once more. There is no time for no time.

How strange it is that technology has sped us up so fast, we are apt to miss the time eclipse when it happens. Don’t go too fast, it will be gone before you even realize it’s there.

Between the Lines

I have not written in a long while, despite having sat here with this empty page in front of me more times than I can count, staring into it’s abyss, as if in doing so I might conjure up the the words that seem to so covertly evade me. It is not so much that I have had nothing to say, but rather too much, perhaps. My thoughts have ventured into deep water, the expanse of which has no measure, a place where words are far too small to hold any shadow of meaning. At long last, words have finally failed me, and any attempt to use them has resulted in absolute (though respectable) sabotage.

So here I am, telling you about my complete and utter interdiction, fully aware that in doing so I have averted and successfully bypassed actually explaining anything to you.

Such is the fate of a writer, there are days when one must write about nothing, and write it well we must.

It’s a little disconcerting, isn’t it? That sudden realization that the one thing you’ve forever relied on, that old steady chap you believed could do anything, she’s failed you. Where does one put thoughts that refuse to be captured or explained? Are they simply borne upon the shoulders of your mind forever without respite, or is there a reason we so fervently desire and seek transmission and perception outside the breakers of our own cognition?

If I cannot tell you of the thing itself, at least you may understand the burden it brings to those who bear it. Our souls want to know we are listening, but there are times we have no means of doing so and are left in a maddening silence.

Then today happened.

Today was my Uncle Mike’s funeral. He was taken from this earth after years of painfully battling cancer, a fight he did with such joy and peace it can hardly be explained. Except, I knew how he did it- it was the Great Secret that found me when I was child, and that I’ve carried inside ever since. Uncle Mike was ready, eager even, because he was going home and he knew it. When I heard his children (my dear cousins) speak of their father’s redemptive story, my soul stirred so fervently I felt the world might hear it’s whispers. I knew that Love, I knew that Secret, it is the sacred language my soul has known all my life, and it was there in that place with me, reminding me….of what?

Of all that is good and beautiful and lovely in this dark world. That even when my words are too small, all that I carry is heard and known and treasured. Some things are better said without words I suppose, and some things must be.