Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Metaphor Party

It has taken three weeks for the humor of it to truly sink in. The Chinese woman I live with calls me Harry. At the beginning she would invent a new first syllable every time and pair it with an “ee” at the end. As the weeks passed, she lost sight of her creative ambition and settled on Harry.

I like getting lost. In elementary school I took a field trip to the National Gallery of Art. While the rest of the kids picked their noses, complained of sore feet, and made preliminary negotiations for lunch box trades, I stood with my head tipped backwards at far as it would stretch, gazing up at the largest painting I had yet seen in my short existence. Across the white canvas was streaked a black line. A black line. For the next 10 years I would site this work as the reason for my skepticism of modern art. I think being lost is like that painting. When I’m lost, I make turns with a rejuvenating disregard of destination. I marvel at the unfamiliarity of the street signs and take each step with the pride of a 15th century explorer. My soul gets a chance to stretch out a little, the known world expanding in size by the minute. Most people would not consider “getting lost” to be a legitimate hobby. I now understand how the artist of that black splotch must feel—so many people are missing out on so much misunderstood beauty.

The weather forecast for Lima always says the same thing: sixties and cloudy today and tomorrow, seventies and sunny starting two days from now. Nice weather is always two days away.

I’m not sure what it means that I enjoy the anonymity of being called the wrong name. Or that I’d rather be lost than found. Or that I plan my outfits for seventy degree days under the assumption that they will actually arrive on schedule. Or that I insist on assigning a deeper meaning to even the most mundane details of life.

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