once upon a time...

when i was in college, i came home the first year over christmas break and promptly got sick. i think it was something about finally having time to rest, and being completely exhausted.

i think of those videos on the Discovery channel, where they sedate the lion and then let him loose later, stumbling around and finally dashing away. it's got to be tiring.

at any rate, i flopped down on the couch one night. my mother said, "kim, are you okay?"

my reply? this is lovely: "She's tired, she said."

as if i was narrating my own life, not only that but in the third person. i didn't use "i." i used "she."

***

once upon a time i wrote a poem. it was something that spilled out of me after corey died. i'd have to go looking for it, but in summation it was like this:

my sound is wind
my color is gray
my name is lucy
and i feel sorry for kim.

i took that in to one of my professors, who read it and even now, years later, i can remember the look on his face. "you're distancing yourself," he said. i remember feeling a profound sense of comfort, just knowing that someone else could see my location, even if i was still there, alone.

***

dan's been writing about being the star in his own movie, and how he doesn't feel like he ever has been. the idea sprouted after i was paging through "the four agreements," a book that has some good ideas but wanders too much for me. i kept thinking that i'd read the page already, only to peek back and find that the author was reiterating what he'd just said two pages ago.

anyway, the author posited that perhaps everyone's lives were their own movies. i do agree with parts of that statement--your movie is what you are seeing. your eyes are the cameras.

but if that is the case, if you are looking out and watching the film run through reel, then you are never the star of your movie.

you're the narrator of "a" movie. is it your movie? only insomuch as you feel the need to narrate it.

i'm a pretty word-based individual. i do my best thinking on paper, or in this case, virtually. i find it difficult to speak sensibly about things, because as i speak i lose direction, and before you know it, you've sprayed water all over the kitchen, and not just at the cake pan in your hands.

sitting down and writing, i can focus, for a while, and it's more personal to me than talking. or perhaps it's because in writing i don't have to miss words with my bum deaf ear. (;

***

anyway, back to my narrative.

i think a lot of the time, people don't feel like they're even narrating their own movie. you dance to the beat of your parents' drum, you try to blend in with the herd of children at school, you walk between the lines across the street, as if those lines are going to save you from that chance horrible driver.

the other people in your life, the ones who walk on and off the set, become the stars. you're relegated to cleaning up after them, supporting their shoulders, wiping tears and feeding and loving them.

you never know, narrating your own tawdry tale, if they feel the same way as you. you don't know how much of a star you are in their movie; just as they probably will never know about the Oscar nod you gave them, in yours.

***

once upon a time, there was a girl, sitting at her keyboard, typing. she listened to the clack of her fingers on the keys, the softer thud of her thumb hitting the space bar, and the pause as her brain caught up with her fingers, and tried once more to lead the dance.