Absolutely Miles Away …too many clouds, too little time…

on a whim…

The driving rain is back again. Three-fifteen am, caught in time, encapsulated by pitter-patter of drop on slate, ink on paper, the storm of words precipitating in the air. It’s never that rainy when you’re not near. But we cannot exercise any self control over who is with us, and who is not.

I try and block out the memories of the stench of rain soaked fields of cabbages, the rain soaked yard of copper chippings and spoils mushed in with pixellated dirt, or the times we could not see through rain in her car on a Sunday night, filled with the ubiquitous sense of disappointment being ferried across the terrain. The rain drives on, and so must we.

Two people have asked me in the most recent days, in the most outright way, why I am so strange. So weird. So different to what is socially acceptable, to what their idea of someone who is normal.

One of said people perhaps could have known better. They may or may not pretend to have some kind of semblance of knowledge of who I am, owing such things as emotions and characteristics down to genes and chromosomes, so bitterly embelleshed into the genetic makeup. Sort of a way that you cannot help being the person you are from the traits passed down. If that were the case, I am questioned, why am I so unlike everyone else before?

It may also be complicated to see that the passing of life’s intricacies owe much to nature, nurture and environment. If you had experienced a life from a different viewpoint, would you have lived it in a similar way?

The other enquirier, a naive and joking acquaintance, who can flip from fish to foreigner in an instant, asks the same. I am not open for you. You are an aquaintance who would take it too much at face value; stand and squirm whilst others air their graces but denouncing any opinion or belief but your own. “Superior”.

I do not wish to tell these people more about me; I do not wish for them to know who I truely am.

On hearing the question uttered, I laughed and feigned off any sort of answer with pacifying words of no substance and no taste, blandly hanging in the air. After this utterance, my mind switches off, glazing over when the usual smirk, sarcasm and instant defence mechanism swing in for demolition.

I am a sarcastic cynic, yet a wondering dreamer.
I am a scientist and an artist.
I am the carer and the cared for.
I am the letters and the numbers.
I am melancholically sad and furiously happy.
My fingers are immersed in many different pies, yet not piercing past the piecrust of any.
I contain the fires of summer but prefer to burn the ice of winter.
I am blissfully unaware yet realistically attuned.

A superposition, a mish-mash, a confusedly moronic oxymoron.

I am not proud in any way of these traits; of how and of who I am. But I’d still never wish for them to know any of this.

Because you would never wish them to know an of this, I’m sure all your readers - myself included - will keep the secret and treasure it, as we do your mesmerising writing.

Long may you be a confusion, because that’s what makes Absolutely Miles Away so fascinating.

A beautiful piece.

Mr Witness: thank you.

am slightly unable to respond to this for reasons unbeknown to language (other than there is no language, really) but I wish for you to keep that secret very quiet.

it’s best that way.

I’ve been called strange too. The funny thing is that I’ve had noticed when one is just “different” you are called strange or weird. If you play around in wonderment and strangness, people don’t understand that.

However, for people just having affectations of strange and odd are just too simple.

It’s a state of being. It’s who you are. If people cannot accept that, then there is no more attention needed.

lovely lovely lovely - I have learnt to be proud of that question / those comments… who’d want to be ordinary when you so clearly are extraordinary… the poem not even just the poet (as I think A.S. Byatt said…)

andophiroxia : it does seem as if anyone different slightly from other people gets branded “strange” in certain situations. do you find only a few people are able to accept?

peach : thank you! would you ever want to try and be ordinary?

One morning in, I think, about March 1986, when I was 14 years old, I woke up and decided to try being ‘ordinary’ for the day.

I lasted out until half past four in the afternoon.

*Shiver*

Worst day of my life.

Mr Witness : please never be “normal”! I don’t think it would suit you. Way too much of an individual for that! :)

sadly sometimes I feel the pressure to try to be so, to fit in, to please, but it never works or lasts… so I have learnt to love it when people ask why I’m so {insert suitable terminology}

aw, that’s excellent. it’s best not to change for people - just try and explain why there are differences, if people are willing to listen…

it is all about the words that flutter from your mind.

Andre : thank you.

*black space*

“I am a sarcastic cynic, yet a wondering dreamer.”

Fantastic. I am not alone. Thank you!

thank you, bobbins. no-one is ever truely alone.

“andophiroxia : it does seem as if anyone different slightly from other people gets branded “strange” in certain situations. do you find only a few people are able to accept?”

It depends really. Sometimes you meet the right sync of people and sometimes you feel like you’re tripping over your own tongue and shoelaces.

All you can do is be happy I’ve found. Works about 90-95% of the time. :) Even if it’s about stupid little things like chocolate milk mixed in that oh-so-right way at the bottom so you get slurpy chocolatey goodness.

gloopy chocolate milk sounds rather interesting! perhaps if everyone passed that around instead of talked, er, people would understand each other better.

maybe not. there are probably only a few ways to pass gloopy chocolate milk.

Sometimes, you can revel in your own gloopy chocolate milk and be quite content. :)

[…] 1. Absolutely Miles Away and On A Whim […]