Words and Spaces
Written by Kelly on January 12th, 2010I am terrible at math. I had a teacher in 9th grade who thought she knew me. Why does two plus two always have to equal four? I complained to her one day. I hate absolutes. She shook her head. No. You don’t. You love absolutes. You just do not like numbers because they do not bend to your emotional appeals. She stood smugly in the classroom, holding a piece of chalk. She appeared to marvel at the powers of her own perception. I did not agree or disagree, instead, I abandoned the math problem. I left her extra-help session and headed down to the library to read. I knew she would continue to add me up as sum. I did not have to be there to witness.
I hate numbers but I love words. When I was small, my grandfather use to read words out of the dictionary. Unfamiliar words, weighty and multi-syllabic. He would read a word and encourage me to guess at the meaning. It never mattered if I knew the correct definition. My grandfather believed that words were more than what a dictionary implied. He taught me that the basis of all good stories was to rely on my instinct and leave the rest to chance.
The other day I was driving my car on a road that was punctuated with power lines. These lines looked like a series of raised crosses or the masts of ships. I was open to either interpretation. As I drove, I imagined the plot for a short story. There was a man and a woman. They journeyed together, but remained separate. She sat with her hands neatly folded and wondered what would happen to her body when she died. She wished for more than the maggoty rot of decomposing bones buried underneath black earth. I could clearly see her profile as she turned to the man, whose hands appeared like risk holding only loosely the steering wheel. She wanted answers he did not have. She recognized her own fault was to admire someone more than she admired herself. She saw power lines dotting the landscape like death. He saw the masts of ships with eyes as rouge as the dream he had of pirates. This man and woman were bereft of words, but not of stories. I write these people down and I think about how their narrative informs my own life.
There are very few things in my life that are absolute. I am a woman. I love my family. I like to tell stories. I write to figure myself out. Yet, I am often unrecognizable. I think it is arrogance to feel you can pin a person down just because they have an aversion to math. I am and I am not the woman in that car. I use to fear worms. I don’t anymore. When I was small, my grandfather taught me to be self-indulgent by affixing my own meanings and interpretations to things that others saw as fact. Imagination is born from just that sort of daring. When I write, emotions and logic sometimes blur. I am okay with that. Some things I write are fiction. Some things I write are fact. What fills the spaces in between are a million interpretations. Me. You.
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This is an amazing post. I’m speechless.
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Was missing you – thanks for the latest. I love words like you do…
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I have an aversion to numbers too – which is funny because my online moniker is all about them. Ironically, I like numbers in terms of the way they relate to words.
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I am so happy to have found your blog. Thanks for stopping by mine. I love this post. Somehow it was something I needed to read today.
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I hate numbers but like accounting. I’m a strange little woman. I think I love the power of words more than the words themselves. They can do so many things. Describe, create, recreate…the possibilities are endless.
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I like words (particularly the English language) because for the same reason I like numbers: because of the way they express concepts. You can find the exact words to describe almost anything.
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The key to enjoying life is embracing ambiguity, because god knows there’s enough of it:)
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Blimey, numbers are not absolutes … who told you that nonsense??? They are just constructs used to create models that mirror certain types of systems. There is beauty in numbers and in maths once you get past the boring arithmetic, calculus and the like. Two plus two equals 4 in base 10 but not in some other bases. There are no absolutes in the conceptual world. Well, I don’t think so anyway! xx Jos
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I have always been a visual learner – but I’ve also always been very good with math. Sort of a paradox. A contradiction. An enigma. I like it that way.
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“What fills the spaces in between are a million interpretations.”
What an intriguing thought. I have never seen it so beautifully expressed.
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I love words too and have always had an incredible aversion to math. Thank you for this. I needed it.
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I don’t comment often, but I read. And damn do I love what you do with words.
“Punctuated” in the sentence about the power lines just hit me. Beautiful word choice, there.