TALKING BLUES

She failed at ever knowing who or what or why she was. Fortunately that was never one of her goals, though it is for many who write her. They imagine she knows the answers to questions they only ask because they heard someone else ask or try to answer them. She failed at everything else in her life, too, she supposes, but the very idea of failure or success disappeared, along with any one who might be concerned about it.

 

All there is, is description. Humans seem to speak or write words that arise and are somehow interpreted. But the entire process of how or why they arise or are interpreted is ultimately invisible. We would have to find the source of everything to know that, but "everything" is just one more thought.

 

There is a cipher, a symbol for all that seems to appear. This writing can be said to come from a Miranda thingie, but if you ask her what she is, she has no idea. 'Appearance' is as good a word as any. She is not a character, not a true self, not consciousness, not awareness, not a bodymind organism, not any thing at all...or maybe she is simply whatever what is perceiving her imagines she is. For there is no thing else, as there is no thing.

 

But she is not even nothing. If it wasn’t for the words she imagines she has learned, she could not talk about this. The squirrel, the bird---the names given to appearances that make it seem like they are known and understood---what is their true nature? Do they need to know what they are to fly or jump or eat or sleep? Does this apparent body? It’s clear the answer is no.

 

There is no one who sees this, as what is seen? If it’s not truth, it’s just thoughts painting thoughts with thoughts, and yet where will you ever find a thought? Definitions are not things, yet things only seem to exist in definitions. 

 

A few people say they would love to talk to her in depth. She imagines they arrive here after a long trip. They start talking, full of questions or comments or ideas they want to share. She would smile, nod, then go make some tea and bring snacks. She would put on some music or poetry or both. They would sit, and then she would take her guest on a walk through the woods, maybe even to the lake where a sea monster allegedly resides. The visitor might talk at first, but as they walked they would grow as silent as she.

 

Soon they would sit at one of the spots she seems to frequent; maybe it would be raining, or maybe the stars would glisten as darkness began to fall under clear skies. The visitor might start asking one of the big questions they have been wanting to discuss with her, excited to finally have the dialogue they have long imagined.

She would listen, look at what to her was their impossibly beautiful face, no matter how they appeared, maybe smile and touch their folded hands gently, then close her eyes. Then, after awhile, she would open her eyes and, with a solitary tear flowing down her cheek, she would consider their question. 

 

And shrug. 

 

And smile again, and get up and lead her guest back up the trail. 💓