Misdirection as a lifestyle
The world is too much, it often seems. There’s never enough time for anything. But if you multiply the total population of the planet by the world’s average life expectancy, that yields quite a bit of time. All that needs to be done is a unification of goals. United, we can do anything, so long as it’s what I want to do.
I spent an entire year at university before introducing myself to my advisor. He was a busy man, my weak justification mumbled, and would take no particular interest in me. That is, unless I gave him reason to take particular interest in me. So I sent him an electronic message and waited for him to reply with a date and time to go see him.
I sat waiting in his office for only a minute before I was called in, adjusting my hair beneath my hat in such a way to make it hold in place upon the hat’s removal. Walking the short winding hallways which boasted an average of more than three corners per meter, I placed my feet exclusively on patches of the floor where I imagined the word ‘preen’ spelled out in the overused Goudy Stout font.
He motioned for me to sit down, but I did not. I handed him a printed sheet of paper I had prepared, and asked if there was a piano in the room, then said I didn’t mind that there wasn’t a piano, for I had perfect pitch. And then I sang, affecting an accent that I had heard used in a film once to portray a Swede. He sat calmly and listened, and halfway through the piece relaxed into a smile and closed eyes. The piece came to a close, then I began to ask him when the callback audition was, but interrupted myself, asking him to simply call me regarding it instead. I then turned to the doorway to exit, and no further words were exchanged.
The next day I received the following message.
‘Kevin, I would like to thank you for the performance you gave me yesterday. It was a welcome spot of lightness in an otherwise hectic day, and any time you wish to come sing for me I will be glad to make such an appointment. However, I have a few things to say regarding the matter you messaged me about, which I was under the impression was going to be discussed when you came in.
‘You say you feel lost. This can mean many things, but yesterday in observing your behaviour, I was able to gather certain specifics. First, you handed me a sheet of paper, which told me that you were prepared to act in contradiction of your setting. If this is so, I can only guess your motive to be the establishment of an identity and to make yourself stand out. This is a large city, and that is difficult to do, and it is understandable for that to be discouraging, but your actions have shown that you are up to such a task. Second, you asked for a piano, though you did not need one. This indicates that you are not confident in your abilities, which, having heard you, I contend there is no reason for. By gaining this confidence you may find other things to simply fall into place. Finally, you sang in a voice that was not your own. I gather that you have been feeling pressure to meet the standards of others, and are not comfortable enough with yourself to be as you naturally are in all situations. Few people are. The important thing is to act as you choose, not as you feel you ought to.
‘I hope that this helps, and that we may meet again.’
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I woke up with a word stuck in my head.
Kevin: Sheila, does the word Julianehab mean anything to you?
Sheila: Not until you tell me what it means.
Kevin: But I don’t know myself.
Sheila: Then give it a meaning. No word meant anything until people decided to assign them.
Kevin: I’m certain it’s not original though. I’ve seen or heard it somewhere, but can’t recall where exactly that was.
Sheila: No matter, there are words in different languages that sound the same but mean different things. The word ‘go’ in Japanese means ‘five’. Why, there are words in the same language that sound the same and have different meanings. There are no patents on sets of syllables.
Kevin: Seven cattle biscuit atrocity undo dentistry.
Sheila: Pardon?
Kevin: Never mind, I just called you a name in this language I’m making up.
I walked all morning thinking of it, paying more attention to the word circling my head than to the paths my feet were taking. For as long as I can recall, fierce battles for control of my conscious thought processes have existed between the day’s events before me and the various songs and sentences which burrow like parasites into my perception of the world and refuse to let me focus.
Elise: So that’s how I need your help.
Kevin: Julianehab.
No reaction.
Elise: Is that some phrase of assent in another language?
Kevin: Have you heard it before?
Elise: Never in my life. Were you listening at all to what I just told you?
Kevin: Sorry, it’s this word stuck in my head. Can you repeat that?
I’ve always been good at reproducing things in my mind. I can recall images and sounds realistically enough for me to convince myself I’m not where I physically am. I have spent long bus rides in the mountains of northern Utah. I have spent many a reprimanding from a parent or authority figure at my own personal concert of the symphony orchestra in my mind. It’s both useful and distracting, and a sure ticket to mental problems in my own age. But with my family history, I could have been sure of that the day I was born.
I went home and looked up the word. It’s the Danish name for a city in Greenland, which in Greenlandic is called something with too many Q’s in it and not enough U’s. The back of my mind must have absorbed this word and poured it slowly and steadily into my cerebral cortex over the previous twelve hours. That often happens when I’m reading - I will notice some phrase in my periphery, not even a particularly interesting phrase, and insert it into the passage I am actively reading, and I have to go back and read the whole thing once I’ve shaken off the confused curiosity at where the phrase came from, until I encounter it further down the page. I have never been as fast a reader as I wish I were.
Kevin: Did you know that Greenland is inhabited?
Stuart: Well, of course.
Kevin: I always thought it was nothing but a barren land of snow.
Stuart: But there’s Reykjavik- oh, wait, that’s Iceland. I walked right into that one, didn’t I?
The fascinating and frightening part about all this information being available on the Internet is that I have no clue what I was doing that I came across this knowledge of the various municipalities of Greenland. I only know the intrigue I felt upon discovering this information, how I spent hours studying the satellite photographs, and how much I wished to go there. Geography was an old hobby of mine; while my contemporaries were running circuits on playgrounds, I sat and stared at maps in encyclopedias. I could name most world capitals, once, and I am sad to say most of that knowledge has since vanished. But this about Greenland jumped out as something I had missed in my studies as a toddler, something I had to complete. So it wasn’t enough to know that these cities existed, I had to know the capitals of each region and where to place them on a map.
So much around me that I’ve never experienced, all so close at hand, and I wanted to go to Greenland. Every day I acquire deeper insights into how foolish I am. The present is shedding around me in shriveled carapaces. I will regret my every moment.
Kevin: Is that truly what it all becomes, sooner or later?
Curtis: So I’ve been told. I’ve never been there.
Kevin: I hope to, some day.
Curtis: If only to get somewhere else?
I converse with Curtis when I want to talk about something without telling him what it is; he never asks. Sometimes his responses scare me, as though he knows what I’m talking about anyhow.
Elise: Did you hear me this time?
I didn’t, so there was no proper answer.
Kevin: My, is it getting warm in this room.
Elise: Is it?
Kevin: Don’t worry about it.
My focus has been off for years. I assume it has, since I don’t appear to be meeting societal standards for keeping on mental tracks. What had Elise said, and why had she approached me? If only people would learn that I am generally incapable, and one ought not to waste time asking favours of me.
Elise: I said…
Here it is again. Perhaps if I try to focus on something else, I’ll instead hear what is being said to me. I shot my line of sight behind Elise’s head to the refrigerator. There was a carton of eggs in there which would be due to expire soon, I needed to make an omelet soon or something of the sort. A magnet on the front of it held an old receipt of mine to the freezer door which I had found particularly interesting because it had abbreviated the word ‘assiete’ to its first three letters, preceding the word ‘souvlaki’. It hummed a low, soothing B-flat, a monotone lullaby it played for me at night.
Elise: …so all I need is to borrow some eggs.
Kevin: Of course. I’ll get them right now.
Elise: Kevin? Go to sleep.
I sighed in memory of times past, when I survived on three hours of sleep each night for entire weeks. I grow old, I grow old; I repeat phrases like my grandmother always does, and I’ve never understood why. I still don’t understand why, I only empathize with her condition, understanding that it is not something she is able to control.
I live in the past and the future; I’ve become perpetually wistful. That’s no way to live.
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