A Picasso. It was just a few days ago that my mom and I pulled up to a huge three-story

Transcription

1 A Picasso Sometimes I like to imagine I m in a movie. I like to think that the mundane, everyday things I do are somehow being captured on a huge camera somewhere hidden in a closet, or directly behind me. It somehow makes me feel as if everything I do is graceful or important. I became aware of this while I was lying on a picnic table with my head propped up by a blanket I had brought with me because I didn t know the front yard had a picnic table in it. The bench wasn t wide enough, so it forced me to hold my arms up by my own effort, and I was frustrated that I didn t feel effortless like they look in the movies. I was glad at that moment that there wasn t a camera on me. I don t want any of my awkward moments to be captured. Anyways, I was reading that novel by Sylvia Plath about the Nihilist college girl who doesn t know she s a Nihilist yet. Every now and then when I would need a break from reading, I would just stare up at the tree above me, and watch it sway with the wind. I wondered why the telephone lines next to it weren t moving at all, but the tree looked like it s leaves were about to be blown off. At that moment, I wished my eyes were the movie camera. I wished that somehow the color and movement I was watching could ve been captured in some way so that it could always be remembered. I think I just hate the human brain, and how it can forget things so easily; things that the spirit doesn t want to forget. For example, the fact that I remember bad moments more vividly than good moments is particularly frustrating to me. I wondered why colors seemed brighter in Maine than they do in Virginia. In Virginia, the colors are pretty, but there s a sad dullness to everything. Here in Maine, the colors are bright, and vivid. It doesn t take away the sadness, but it s still bright. It makes me think of this B-movie I like to watch sometimes about a girl who falls in love with a Native American named Wolf. After they meet he tells her, You have a bright smile. But sad eyes. I like that line. It makes me feel less crazy for thinking that you can be sad and happy at the same time. I watched the inconsistent wind flick the bright green leaves back into the sunlight, making them turn white in the glow. Every now and then, a car would pass by, and I wondered if the drivers were curious as to what I was doing. I wondered if what I was doing looked unusual, or if anybody cared in the first place. I wondered if any of my new friends living inside the big white house to my left were looking out the window at me, thinking about me, even in a small way. Like if they liked the sound of my name, or admired the shirt I picked for today. I think about them a lot. I just like some of their qualities. I like his eyes, and her laugh. I would tell them, but the last time I told someone I liked one of their qualities, they got the wrong idea, so I stopped doing that a long time ago. It was just a few days ago that my mom and I pulled up to a huge three-story

2 white house on the campus of a small private school. It took me ten minutes to move all my boxes and suitcases inside. Then, she drove off in the rental car as I thought about how I would decorate my massive three-person dorm room that I get to myself for six weeks. That morning, we went to a local church and the only thing I remember is being so mesmerized by the pastor s eyes. They really should stop hiring such attractive men to be pastors. I stopped listening to the sermon when I saw his eyes. I can t explain what made them so beautiful, but there was this childlike brightness behind them. Their size and shape were picturesque of the words encouraging, hopeful, and penetrating, for lack of a better of word. I hate the word penetrating, but his eyes made it seem innocent. But, more than that, there was something behind his eyes. Something that was almost un-earthly. A beauty I ve never seen before in my life. It left me speechless because there wasn t a word to describe just what this thing was. In between looking at his eyes and looking down at the Bible app on my phone in an attempt to catch up, I was acutely aware of his son, sitting on the opposite end of the aisle across for me. He had played guitar for a song before his father got up, and I couldn t sing because I was distracted by his face. They should stop hiring beautiful worship leaders, too. I d have the church in tip-top shape if I was in charge of it; it s like they want to torture us with beauty we can t touch or hold. His skin was so flawless and his bone structure so sharp, that I thought his face was carved from stone. He was an other-worldly beautiful, just like his father. He had long hair, and was probably six foot five or maybe taller. He was unlike anyone I d ever seen before. He had his father s eyes, and smooth, full lips. I worked up the courage to catch his eye for a split second, but then a familiar ache punched my gut, and I let it go. After the service, one of the nice, older gentleman I had spoken with brought me a church directory, and like the snoop I was, I looked for this person. It said he lived in Lexington, Kentucky. Seven hours from me. Then I saw that he had an odd last name so I let go of it altogether, but I couldn t get his face out of my mind. I m picky about those kinds of things. Maybe that s why I haven t been on a date in four years. That night, his mother texted me and invited me to dinner. We re still trying to set a night for them to come pick me up and have me over for dinner. I don t think it s going to happen; they re the kind of people who keep talking about doing something, but never accomplish it. I think if you want to do something, but you think too hard about it, you ll eventually convince yourself to not do it altogether. I mean, Shakespeare said it best: Thus conscience does make cowards of us all. I was still staring up at the sunlight flickering in between the billowing branches while holding the small book to my chest. My shoulders started to ache, probably tired from not having enough bench to rest my elbows on. I felt a small sensation on the outside of my arm, and felt for it; I quickly flicked off a small spider-like creature. I must have laid

3 down on his house. That s when I felt a pang of emptiness in my stomach and realized I must have been hungry for a while. It s too bad that movies can t capture sensations like hunger, or tired muscles. Then again, if they could, the movies wouldn t be perfect anymore. I mean, sure, cameras can stare straight into the face of an actor who is crying, laughing, or both, but it just seems so perfect. Their stories have perfect, tie-it-with-a-bow endings that real life doesn t have. It s like Hollywood teases me. I thought back to every other time I wasn t twenty-one and free, and tried to remember if I ve always liked imagining I m in a movie. On my twenty-first birthday three months ago, I felt as if I had finally arrived at adulthood. I could finally enjoy all the flavors of life. But every moment leading up to this crossing of the threshold never made sense to me. I never understood why most things in my life didn t feel real; now I know that I tricked my brain into believing that I was just imagining all the hard things. The screams in the master bedroom. The slamming car doors. The lump in my throat. I am not on some journey to fix myself, because I don t think anything is wrong with me. In fact, I feel quite normal. But, looking back on the entirety of my life, I experienced such a vast array of things that it s almost as if they don t fit together at all. Most people s lives look like one perfect puzzle; or at least, that s the way they tell their stories. We ve heard them all. A chubby kid who gets bullied his whole life hits puberty and sheds two hundred pounds in one summer. He comes back to school in the fall, becomes Varsity football captain, falls in love with the head cheerleader, they go to an Ivy League school together, get married, have three kids, and live a peaceful, easy life in some suburb in the Midwest. Another one I enjoy is about the lanky, acne-ridden kid who is a genius all throughout high school but no one pays him a second glance. He goes off to a great college on a full ride scholarship and finally escapes his never-ending awkward phase. He becomes incredibly handsome and achieves an amazing sense of style. He lands a big internship in New York City, becomes CEO within five years, and marries a beautiful blonde actress who he takes to a white tablecloth restaurant every Friday night. These stories are all the ones I ve ever heard; they all seem like perfect puzzle pieces that just fit together and make one beautiful masterpiece. These stories are Monet or Van Gogh paintings: you take one look at it, and you can see a landscape or piece of furniture that just makes sense. The colors are swirly and pretty, but the picture is still comprehendible. If my life were a puzzle, I think it would be a Picasso painting. The pieces just don t quite fit together. And, yes, some people may look at it and think that even though it doesn t make sense, it s still beautiful. I just wish I agreed. I m a big fan of things that fit together perfectly and make sense. I respect Picasso, but I don t

4 understand him. The only thing I see is a nine-year-old girl sitting on her bed, covering her ears. She is angry that everyone around her believes that they don t have options. So, she decides to begin making options for herself. None of it has to be real if she doesn t want it to be. She can blur it out. She can blot it out with water, like painters do. You can never really mess up when you re painting. Everything is fixable on a canvas. Why shouldn t life be that way too? She would rather fool herself into believing that the unbearable moments were just a film, and she can hit mute whenever she wants, than seeing the bright red anger and vast, sinking black death in technicolor right before her eyes. You want it to be easy? Make it easy. The pieces of my life-puzzle that were given to me were pieces of a Picasso painting, and I did everything in my power to arrange it in a way that would make it look like a Monet. You can t return or exchange the pieces you re given. Someday, I might be able to go back to the dusty, dark corner of my room where I scattered the pieces I didn t want, and gather them up, and attempt to put them together; no matter how confusing the final masterpiece looks. Someday, I might be able to force myself to accept that everything is real, and that the movies belong on the 2-dimensional screen, not a 4- dimensional life. I know the truth. The truth is that you can only change your reality by actually doing something about it, not just imagining it. But the imagination is a very safe place. You can imagine yourself to be a supermodel, to be loved by a man who resembles a Greek god, to be a billionaire, and to be the person you admire the most. But, at the end of the day, when your head hits the pillow, and the darkness envelops the light, reality is still reality. I have to wonder if reality is more vibrant when our head is aware of it, and not dancing off in some fantasyland that will never be real. I eventually forced myself to go back inside and make lunch, but I was reluctant. The Maine sky is just too captivating. The days are long, and I ve had more moments of boredom that I d care to confess. This job demands maybe 4-5 hours of work a day, but other than that, the minutes are filled with laughter with fellow roommates, and lots of alcohol. I m usually not one to lose myself under the influence of alcohol, but I feel as if I am floating, thus I have nothing better to do. I know I am wrong, but I don t want to stop. I have no car, so I am not as free to come and go as I please. I d be lying if I said that I didn t want some meaningless summer romance while I was up here, but it has been two and half weeks, and no one has really caught my eye. I m pretty picky when it comes to that. Not just attractiveness, but there s an electricity that everyone carries. I wholeheartedly believe that some people carry this electricity with them that is so compelling you can t take their eyes off them. I ve only met a few people with this

5 magnetism inside them, and I ve made up my mind that that s what I m waiting for. I don t believe, however, that finding a soulmate should be the primary purpose of one s life. Most of the time, I am trying to put together the pieces of my life that just don t make sense. I m finding that each person I meet helps me solve the puzzle. I learn something about myself the more people I meet, and the more I see the way they see.