It was a curious day when things ceased to mean. And by that I don’t mean they were cruel or anything but things ceased to change. And not the kind of change you get from a dollar, the kind of change that means something to you. And not the letter U either, something that means something to me. And not the note either, though I suppose it could relate to I. But, then again, I often don’t see the point. But I guess if a point was coming for my eye I really wouldn’t want to see it anyhow.
Anyhow there came a day when all of this meant nothing. Or did it already mean nothing and I just didn’t notice? Was I the first to notice? That didn’t make sense. Nothing changed for anyone else. Or maybe it did. Maybe I was the last to see it. Perhaps everyone else already saw it and just said “OK” like it was the most natural thing in the world. Why then, and I don’t mean the letter, can’t I see it? I have eyes, three of them in fact. Two on my face and the one that is me. And again I mean the self and not the note. Though notes are important, they allow us to remember was we had to say. But did I ever really say anything if no one heard it?
Perhaps that’s the problem. I have things to say, thoughts to be heard, but there is only me. The solitary note. And not even the first note. Only important because it bridges Re and Fa. So just a step for the singer to step on. An elevation for another while being left behind. A sonorous stepping stone only important for the one step that meant something for a moment, then wasn’t an after thought after the singer reached that final crescendo. Do, of course. Of course it would be dough. The root of all evil. And not in a bready sense, though it is kneaded or perhaps it is not needed. I just get so confused.
Maybe I just can’t see it. Like a boat far from the shore. When did water get involved with this? I guess when dough got involved. Isn’t that right? Just so many words at this point. And where does that leave me? Just a note for a scale. Like the part of the fish that at once served a point but got scrapped off and thrown away. But that scale meant something to the fish. What do I mean to a fish, and when did the fish become important? Probably part of the problem. I just can’t tell what’s important anymore. Is anything important anymore? I guess something must be. People move to and fro with such purpose that something must be driving them. But what is driving me? Is it the same thing that is driving people away? That’s the direction people go in when I am there. Away. Not to, not fro, but away. What’s worse is that sometimes away is right there. Near, yet far. So close but still a miss. And isn’t it funny how that works. Such a thin line between that which is and that which isn’t. Which is which? And who is to say? Not I it seems. Surely it seems like others decide.
Now that we have that out of the way (or do we?) we can get the matter at hand. The day when things lost meaning. It was a day unlike any other in so much that it was so like all the other days that it caused me pain. It was a pain that woke me that crisp September morning. Not searing, not throbbing, just a pain. The pain itself started at the top of my left eye, went up and around my nose and settled itself squarely above my right. A veritable rainbow of pain. I awoke with this feeling and felt awful. Not the worst pain that I had ever encountered, the description of which would require a tome of its own, but a pain that so dominated my being I had to question if it had become my whole being. It hadn’t, of course, but I still needed to ask the question.
I instinctively brought my right hand to the apex of the inciting arc and felt. First with my nerves, then with my fingers. “Surely something should be the source of this discomfort” said my nerves, “but I can find nothing to be the matter” retorted my fingers. So now I had a curious quandary on my mind, in both the literal and figurative of senses, somehow caused by two senses, quadruple senses? Never mind, but still on my mind.
I sat up at this point, eager to find the solution. I tend to find that my usual reason for getting up is finding the solution, but often without a question. This time I had one, “what’s going on?” And not in the 1970’s sense of the phrase but in a more immediate sense. Immediate was the word of the moment, followed closely by “ow” so I elected to visit the bathroom but not for the usual reasons. Having sat up in bed I swung my legs to the right and exposed them to the crisp cold air of that crisp September morning. The skin of my legs shouted their usual displeasure due to leaving their warm environment. The skin and hair standing at attention of this shift of 45 degrees to the right and 30 degrees down. Funny how degrees can do that. I lowered my feet to the floor, descending my two feet about two feet and smiled slightly at the juxtaposition as I changed my position. Strange how change can do that. Be it degrees, degrees or position and juxtaposition. But my joviality was brought to a swift end as the veritable painbow on my forehead asked “remember me?”
I had not forgotten, of course, merely hoped that by changing what I could I could change that which I had hoped to forget. I could not forget the pain as it was foremost in my thoughts and squarely on my mind which was racing about in a round about way. And with that trinary now shapes were involved. I know they had threatened earlier with all those talks of degrees, but I had hoped they cooled themselves as my legs did that crisp September morning. The arc that was my pain threatened a shape as well but decidedly decided to remain decidedly incomplete.
Speaking of incomplete, or, more precisely the opposite thereof, I had completed my journey to the bathroom. In the incomplete light of that crisp September morning I fumbled about for a short time to locate that which could propel me to the full lightness, the light switch. Funny how switches can do that, turn that which isn’t into that which is, and I certainly needed “is” at that moment, but then the pain on my head reminded me of the importance of isn’t. I located the switch, a relatively simple task for even me, the most simple, and engaged its all too important services. Now firmly in the on position I was bombarded by bombastic beams all the while hoping for more illumination. Instantly regretting my decision but resigning myself to its necessity in the crisp September morning, I gazed into that all too oft reminder of that which I haven’t done, the mirror.
It was then, which strikes me as odd thinking of now as then, when I saw it. Nothing. No insidious mark leading me on a grand quest of swords, sorcery and saving the maiden fair, but instead no sign of my discomfort. “How disconcerting” I said in concert with my reflection, again smiling but this time in stereo at the playful words from both inside and out. How amusing, and bemusing, it is to see musings happen in real time. And of course there is no time like the present to de-muse yourself back to the matter at hand.
So back to the matter at hand, or, more precisely, that matter that was foremost on my mind, which was, at that particular moment, the unknown yet wholly encompassing discomfort of my forehead. Not only the physical pain itself but the metaphysical pain it caused me by knowing the locational source of the pain but being quite baffled by the physical source generating the pain. And what a generation it was. Generating pain on multiple levels was quite an accomplishment for something so seemingly simple yet so simply complex. I pondered that for a moment and in that moment my mind was free of the pain, but soon it overtook those thoughts and forced itself to the forefront.
The pain, of course, had not ceased its course so I ceased my course and set my course toward a new destination which I hoped would provide me the answers to that which I must know. Knowing as little as I did it was actually a much more difficult decision to make than one would think. I think I thought at the time that it was time for action, but what action could I take that would really help? I wanted to do something but the thing that I wanted to do in its specificity, that the only action that I could really take, was no action at all. All the while that I enacted my actionless plan the pain that was foremost forefront on my frontal cortex pulsed its painful parade from one eye to the other in a discomforting symphony of discomfort.
It was then I realized what I must do, and in doing might find an answer to that which perplexed and wounded me. I must seek out the man of many hats and many faces. My reflection nodded in assent to the correction of course as pain coursed through my cortex and sent me careening out the door pointed towards that which I believed might hold my salvation. A salve to my question and an answer to my pain.