Knocked on AI’s door last week, went right up to their house. I know, I know. What was I doing rocking up to some strange (Thing’s? Dude’s? Person’s?) place that doesn’t even have a face (it doesn’t, does it?), who takes split personality to a whole new level (can you have a personality without being a person or does it then just become a —nality?). Who knows.
Got a strange feeling there. Was really hard to place it. You know when you go to Costco and there’s like fifty flat screen TV’s and you haven’t bought a new TV since Rocky first released and every, single screen around you is playing Jurassic Park– the bit where Laura Dern and Sam Neil get out of the helicopter and they look with faces that’s just like ‘Holy shit! I really can’t believe this! This place is soooo amazing’– and it’s just so VIVID, it messes with your eyes? Like if you took one step closer you might find yourself right in it? That kinda feeling.
Anyway, I was outside their house and I had flowers and cake, and I was ready to French kiss (Their? His? Her? Its?) face off.
Because last week, a person called Mandy came to one of my classes (they were rad) and at the end, when we talked about our work they said, “Well, I was supposed to be writing about crows and then I went down a blue jay hole” and I blurted “That’s an excellent newsletter title! That’s exactly the kind of newsletter I wanna read!”. Not just because crow people are my people, or because I’ve never seen a blue jay and I suspect if I was looking to go down a hole with anyone it would be a blue bird but mainly THANK GOD! THE WRITING OF A HUMAN! TAKE ME IMMEDIATELY TO THE BLUE JAYS (and the crows).
“Honestly, AI,” I told them once they showed up at the door, “I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how grateful I am. Here, take the cake, it’s getting heavy. There’s only so long I can hold it with one arm.
“It’s like you flipped a switch in me! I never even KNEW there was an upper limit for the quiet ache of becoming or the tender unfolding of your truth. I had NO IDEA that one day, if someone talked to me about the gentle whispers of my soul or to trust my silent longing I would say ‘Oh, fuck OFF’ quite loud (and gotta be careful! There are children!). And even more (there’s more!!!) that I would feel the urge to grab packet of menthol cigarettes even though I have never smoked in my life and imagine that the taste is quite disgusting not to mention the expense!
“You never told me that.
“Is this what anarchy feels like? Can you search it?
“You see it’s weird because I never even realized- it’s almost embarrassing to say- all the ways that I edited my human. All those years that I did my best to sound professional, or understanding, or knowledgeable OR WHATEVER. I mean, it’s crazy! I never even knew!
“It must have been exhausting. This is all thanks to you, AI- I hope you’re listening, cheeky chops.
“YOU gave this gift to me. Come here so I can hug you. YOU gave me the blue jay! OMFG! Is it time for the FULL WEIRD?!!
“Is this the moment?! When our most glorious, unhinged, chaotic, sweary selves RAMPAGE to the ends of our fingertips and declare a revolution?
“I think it might be. I. Think. It. Might. Be.
“Cos it turns out my authentic self is kinda sweary. She’s not quiet whispery at all! And she’s not underneath the surface. She’s so far beyond that! She’s the sinew and the organs and she’s definitely the guts and if you lay her out, she’s all over the tennis court and she kinda just spills out.
“She stops. And then she starts again, and she loves a running sentence and OMG- SQUIRREL!!!! Did you see that?- and she wants to throw paint in your face and wear really big skirts, like MASSIVE ones, that fly around and make her ten times her actual size, where the peacocks and the bluejays and the lilac crested rollers and the parakeets mistake the excess of material for wings and all come out and screech, YOU ARE OUR PEOPLE.
“NO MORE QUIET WHISPERS!!!
“Because who knew, AI? Who bloody knew? That to roll out our insides like red carpet and actually live stream the contents of our brain could be the most subversive, the most interesting, the most yearned for piece of writing ever?
“That it is no longer brave but it is CRAVED.
“That our not normal is our currency. That our quirky is intellectual nutrition and that keeping all our edges and sharing them is the way we will be saved?!
“WHO KNEW, AI, that if nothing else, you could teach us that?
“Thank you. For that, I bloody love you.”
-Jane