When the popcorn thoughts came
I remember being five years old and listening to trees, the slow creak of the water rushing through them, buried deep under the bark, matching the sea-sound heartbeat in my ears. On windy days I would hold tight to the corners of my open jean jacket, and let the wind blow me back half a step, convinced that I would be lifted, kitelike, along the cement. Every note made by running a stick along the tall wrought-iron fence was different. I wasn't quite six yet when the thoughts came.
They might have come before, but the first time I can really remember is standing in the backyard, staring at the tiny strawberry that I had picked, and knowing that it was alive and so was I and that the world was huge around me, hearing the cars and the other people and knowing that none of them besides me could see the second where the strawberry had come off the stem, no one besides me could see the green-bruised snap when I picked daisies out of the lawn, and that I couldn't explain the soft, talcum-powder textured sound of the sink running at it's lowest flow when my mom washed my strawberry.
In later years I discovered that I was the only one I knew who the thoughts came to, opening up boxes upon boxes and spilling all the world into my head, snapping off one-two-three like popcorn, filling me up beyond my ability to speak or draw or write them down. I could hold great fistfuls of them in my head, swimming about like fishes, as if my brain were my dad's computer slowly loading up the internet while he typed. I remember talking to other six year olds about electrons running in wires, not being able to turn around, about the orange color in carrots that turned your teeth yellowish after you bit into them, about the fact that different trees had different heartbeats and people having different-flavored names. I remember being incredulous that no one else knew how a butterfly turned liquid inside it's chrysalis and put itself back together again, a wing here and a leg there, maybe a bit of an eye. Worms were an endless fascination, slimy against my fingertips and their tiny veins reminding me of the heartbeat of the trees.
Today I watched in my head as the theoretical molecules were pulled apart and bounced between magnets to determine how much they weighed, electrons screaming across empty space, and I realized that the popcorn thoughts, which were popping up a story and a method for separating soap and dirt while I watched, weren't going on behind my professor's eyes. She didn't know about the popcorn thoughts, and it made me sad to know that the thoughts didn't come to her, the electrons didn't sing for her, even though she loves the beautiful too large too small world and she watches the student-mind click over to realization every day. But she's watching the slow tick, not the jump and snap of the popcorn thoughts, and it would be rude to tell her to fast-forward.
To this day, I have met three people who I see the popcorn thoughts jumping in. I've met a few more who I can see a few boxes opening up in, pouring things out, and I've come to realize that aside from the unfolding in the heartbeat of the trees, the popcorn thoughts are essentially a lonely thing.
So - who else out there has had the thoughts come to them?
They might have come before, but the first time I can really remember is standing in the backyard, staring at the tiny strawberry that I had picked, and knowing that it was alive and so was I and that the world was huge around me, hearing the cars and the other people and knowing that none of them besides me could see the second where the strawberry had come off the stem, no one besides me could see the green-bruised snap when I picked daisies out of the lawn, and that I couldn't explain the soft, talcum-powder textured sound of the sink running at it's lowest flow when my mom washed my strawberry.
In later years I discovered that I was the only one I knew who the thoughts came to, opening up boxes upon boxes and spilling all the world into my head, snapping off one-two-three like popcorn, filling me up beyond my ability to speak or draw or write them down. I could hold great fistfuls of them in my head, swimming about like fishes, as if my brain were my dad's computer slowly loading up the internet while he typed. I remember talking to other six year olds about electrons running in wires, not being able to turn around, about the orange color in carrots that turned your teeth yellowish after you bit into them, about the fact that different trees had different heartbeats and people having different-flavored names. I remember being incredulous that no one else knew how a butterfly turned liquid inside it's chrysalis and put itself back together again, a wing here and a leg there, maybe a bit of an eye. Worms were an endless fascination, slimy against my fingertips and their tiny veins reminding me of the heartbeat of the trees.
Today I watched in my head as the theoretical molecules were pulled apart and bounced between magnets to determine how much they weighed, electrons screaming across empty space, and I realized that the popcorn thoughts, which were popping up a story and a method for separating soap and dirt while I watched, weren't going on behind my professor's eyes. She didn't know about the popcorn thoughts, and it made me sad to know that the thoughts didn't come to her, the electrons didn't sing for her, even though she loves the beautiful too large too small world and she watches the student-mind click over to realization every day. But she's watching the slow tick, not the jump and snap of the popcorn thoughts, and it would be rude to tell her to fast-forward.
To this day, I have met three people who I see the popcorn thoughts jumping in. I've met a few more who I can see a few boxes opening up in, pouring things out, and I've come to realize that aside from the unfolding in the heartbeat of the trees, the popcorn thoughts are essentially a lonely thing.
So - who else out there has had the thoughts come to them?