Face

At the risk of sounding arrogant or coincided, I say the following:

Words have power. We forget that, I forget that. Writing becomes common place, and there is some writing I have done previously that I don’t really wish to do ever again, such as reviewing music. I can say what is preferable to my ears, yes, but I am not going to put down someone’s effort-laden talents based on my personal opinions of what they can do better, or based on what others, in my opinion, do better than them. There is some writing that I have done, such as news reporting, that can be dry or wet, depending on the angle and the people you involve. Maybe you can get a real answer instead of just a sound bite but you must realize as the writer — you are the creator, they are not. You are creating this universe, you are a god in the universe you are creating — a god without the obligations of omnipresence in all prayer rooms or the comedown from a cocaine high.

But there are other times in writing when you just are. You are perfect. Every moment is perfect. This is not to say that the writing and the moment cannot be made better, it is to say that a new definition of the word “perfect” must be accepted and we must understand that in this world, in this state, in this situation nothing can be made better or worst but all your personal experiences, other people’s personal experiences, and a series of events both planned and coincidental have conspired to make that moment what it is. Therefore it is perfect. We must accept that. It is what Morpheus once said in an elevator, “What could have happened, did happen. It could not have happened any other way.”

I have been reading a good deal about coincidence, perfect moments, and understanding what those perfect moments mean. I have come to understand that there are no coincidences, sometimes the day is structured as such. If you ever had those days where several things in several different situations impact you profoundly, or you run into a good deal of people you know randomly in one day, you have experienced such an event.

The day started off with my first class of the new semester; a Saturday morning class about creative poetry writing. The day started off with us having to flip through our text book and find a poem and read aloud to the class. I opened the book randomly, but immediately coming to a poem, a long poem, about a gay mentally abusive relationship, written by an author whom lives in Tucson. I stood, and read it aloud, my dry mouth and quiet voice giving way to a booming resonance that spoke with authority. I read all three pages of it. The class stared at me. The teacher later told me she had not heard anyone outside of the poetry slam, and seldom then, read a poem with such conviction and tension.

Later in the class we were teamed up with partners, and we were instructed to take five minutes to write a poem about the other person’s face. I was teamed up with a 44-year old black woman, dressed in gray and crippled with arthritis, teeth that could have been polluted with either too much soda or too much crystal meth. But when she spoke earlier she spoke with conviction about how poetry came into her heart when she was in a shelter for battered women in Anaheim. I am from Anaheim. I wrote about these shelters for a film I worked on. I know about her program. I am a 25-year old white gay male. I am removed from her world. I read the poem aloud to the class. I looked up, she was crying. She said it was beautiful, it was what she needed. I didn’t mean to do anything near what I did.  

After this class I returned home, ran errands, took a nap. I went shopping. I finished a movie. I went to Starbucks, one which I don’t usually frequent. I ran into old friends. Nikki Graham. I ran into her brother Kyle the week before at Seattle’s Best across the street. Previous to this, I had not seen either of them for nearly two years.

I went at night to Tempe Marketplace to buy some clothes. Near the theater, by myself, I run into Rylan Lombard. Nathan. I have not seen him in nearly a year and a half. He used to be good friends with Nikki. Tim Trainor and David Wheeler are inside, as is Rochelle. I have not seen Rochelle in nearly six months but she has been on my mind intently this last week; I used to always run into her at Coffee Rush. I spoke to Tim earlier in the day, didn’t know he would be here tonight. Tim is leaving tomorrow for Anaheim. I hugged David Wheeler. David and I were in Israel together. No, Israel does not factor into anything else here; stop looking for connections that aren’t there.

But I am told that I just missed Brandon and Andrea Willey. This is the third time in at least a month’s or so time that I have been told that I have “just missed” Brandon and Andrea. This, again, serves to remind me that I need to call or email Brandon. Soon. I have not done this. But I am meaning too. Missed connections remind me that this run-in must be purposeful, it is more important than to just happen by chance.

Here is the prose poem I wrote about the black woman today in class:

The surface belies stories, the words spoken coincide with those stories and there is more that is inside. What is inside? Her eyes tell a story but that story is not complete … inside there is a story that seems to speak of experience, interests, past lives and future lives. What is inside? The face in front of me, beautifully perfect and beautifully imperfect, the knit cap and shoulder-length brown hair. There is more inside. What is inside? Glimmering orbs stare out and pierce, speak of humanity and sympathy, but not of arrogance or pity. Strong. Determined. You do not dare to criticize or assume to know, because you are not as learned about her as you think you are. You do not dare to cast judgment or apply labels or stereotypes, as probably many already have. This face will surpass them, will triumph you and all you know and you think is possible for a face such as hers – the face that has been present in situations and relationships you cannot begin to comprehend. The eyebrows raise and the lips smile with a determination to get it right, then the lips grow more serious but the eyebrows remain in their stance as you can see what is inside is working – working harder than you.  A bow of the head and the facial gestures remain, a tip of the mind and an attentive ear to what is around. This face will not miss one detail. This face will not miss one fucking detail. The five senses will be controlled from her window, and you will know her through this window. But you will not get inside. I dare you to try. She is stronger than you, seen more than you, been more people in more situations than you can even dream. What is inside? You will not get inside. The voice speaks and the woman calculates how much she can afford to let you know, how much she can afford to give away of herself, her pain, her past, her future, her joy. This voice is the opening of the window, and she’ll give you enough, bread crumbs from this window, enough to be satisfied, enough to be confident that you have the entire puzzle arranged and can put together the bigger picture. But she will not give to you more than she can give to herself. She has done that before, and the lesson has been learned. The window is not closed tight, the window is not blocked with curtains, the window has not been boarded up. The woman recognizes that one cannot be calloused or jaded, but she will not give it to you, give it to you all. What’s inside? Too much. But you will not get inside.