People are so much more, and no less than the stories they share
The same is true for the stories they don't
Or so I've grown to believe
And if you don't think about it it makes sense,
And if you do think about it kinda doesn't,
It's amazing to me the things you can learn from asking how a person is doing in passing, and actually wanting to hear their response,
Or from asking a cashier how their shift is going
Questions like grappling guns fired into the sometimes open windows of their minds
An entry unexpected but not always unwelcome
Footsteps and banter echoing throughout the home while brief pamphletized versions of their lives
Are presented to you and tours begin
Sound waves bounding and rebounding inside of funky looking vases and bouncing off of dense Bookcases we are collecting dust in some areas and not in others
Brief but sweet like Hershey kisses
Dora worked long hours at the gas pump kiosk thing a mile from my Texas home
Spending countless hours a week locked up in a glass case and relatively unnoticed like a has-been
Lack-luster museum exhibit that just happened to sell cigarettes
Which she would smoke between worn fingers in summers when her cell became too hot
And one day jokingly, I decided to make a quick, elementary school type anti-smoking quip that I
Cannot presently remember
Heartily she laughed,
Snuffed out her cancer stick
And within moments I found in this woman a long lost mother
She'd worked there for 10 years she said
Incidentally watching me grow
And when I came to her, wearing my job interview outfit,
I reminded her of her son
And her life gone by
And she smiled from somewhere much deeper with every inch of her face
And I think it was because for once in a very long time,
She wasn't noticed in the same way that you breathe without intention or blink, but rather
She was seen.
Alonzo from California works with his uncle Pepe Delgado at Pepe's
And had great things in store for him
Scholarships and the like
And in the course of bad fortune lost it all
But now he works diligently to find his way for him and his brother who follows closely behind him
And it's not glamorous
His lisp exaggerated when he raves about working for Barry Switzther on weekends with lawncare
But had I not been wearing that memory jogging shirt that random Thursday
I wouldn't have been seen
And taking in all of his short-comings but wanting someone somewhere to acknowledge his potential
Speaking with the breathlessness of a young kid in the middle of a game of catch-phrase
About how life could have been,
He wouldn't have been heard.
Just today, Feddy from Queens, made a brief 2 or 3 frame appearance into the Sundance indie film That is my life
And I don't know a thing about him aside from how many brothers and sisters he has,
Or that he uses the word "eateries" instead of restaurants
But there was a special sort of connection that was made when I stood with him outside while he had A smoke
And despite his suspected homelessness,
Gave him the respect of a handshake
It's as if that's all he ever wanted...
I've come to think that sometimes,
People don't always have dreams of doing great things
Of soaring through in swift flashes with colorful feathers of money-green and camera-flash white
With fingers young to arthritic following after them in wonder
Or of anything at all really...
They would just like to be acknowledged.
To have that moment when eyes lock, and heads nod that say
I see you,
You see me,
We both have our own lives and complexities
But we are both here
And we exist
So all thanks be to those of cave-dwelling past and even possible hologram Star Wars future,
Who have and will continue to share these tales,
Our tales,
Beautiful and bland
And bless us with immortality.
Cause in the end that's all we really are- stories and memories.
Thank you for reminding us that we mattered
As we jump from the first lily pad to the next
Fighting as we always will to stay above the changing tides...
And to the ripples that will some day reverberate back to us in new waters,
We look forward to meeting you.
The same is true for the stories they don't
Or so I've grown to believe
And if you don't think about it it makes sense,
And if you do think about it kinda doesn't,
It's amazing to me the things you can learn from asking how a person is doing in passing, and actually wanting to hear their response,
Or from asking a cashier how their shift is going
Questions like grappling guns fired into the sometimes open windows of their minds
An entry unexpected but not always unwelcome
Footsteps and banter echoing throughout the home while brief pamphletized versions of their lives
Are presented to you and tours begin
Sound waves bounding and rebounding inside of funky looking vases and bouncing off of dense Bookcases we are collecting dust in some areas and not in others
Brief but sweet like Hershey kisses
Dora worked long hours at the gas pump kiosk thing a mile from my Texas home
Spending countless hours a week locked up in a glass case and relatively unnoticed like a has-been
Lack-luster museum exhibit that just happened to sell cigarettes
Which she would smoke between worn fingers in summers when her cell became too hot
And one day jokingly, I decided to make a quick, elementary school type anti-smoking quip that I
Cannot presently remember
Heartily she laughed,
Snuffed out her cancer stick
And within moments I found in this woman a long lost mother
She'd worked there for 10 years she said
Incidentally watching me grow
And when I came to her, wearing my job interview outfit,
I reminded her of her son
And her life gone by
And she smiled from somewhere much deeper with every inch of her face
And I think it was because for once in a very long time,
She wasn't noticed in the same way that you breathe without intention or blink, but rather
She was seen.
Alonzo from California works with his uncle Pepe Delgado at Pepe's
And had great things in store for him
Scholarships and the like
And in the course of bad fortune lost it all
But now he works diligently to find his way for him and his brother who follows closely behind him
And it's not glamorous
His lisp exaggerated when he raves about working for Barry Switzther on weekends with lawncare
But had I not been wearing that memory jogging shirt that random Thursday
I wouldn't have been seen
And taking in all of his short-comings but wanting someone somewhere to acknowledge his potential
Speaking with the breathlessness of a young kid in the middle of a game of catch-phrase
About how life could have been,
He wouldn't have been heard.
Just today, Feddy from Queens, made a brief 2 or 3 frame appearance into the Sundance indie film That is my life
And I don't know a thing about him aside from how many brothers and sisters he has,
Or that he uses the word "eateries" instead of restaurants
But there was a special sort of connection that was made when I stood with him outside while he had A smoke
And despite his suspected homelessness,
Gave him the respect of a handshake
It's as if that's all he ever wanted...
I've come to think that sometimes,
People don't always have dreams of doing great things
Of soaring through in swift flashes with colorful feathers of money-green and camera-flash white
With fingers young to arthritic following after them in wonder
Or of anything at all really...
They would just like to be acknowledged.
To have that moment when eyes lock, and heads nod that say
I see you,
You see me,
We both have our own lives and complexities
But we are both here
And we exist
So all thanks be to those of cave-dwelling past and even possible hologram Star Wars future,
Who have and will continue to share these tales,
Our tales,
Beautiful and bland
And bless us with immortality.
Cause in the end that's all we really are- stories and memories.
Thank you for reminding us that we mattered
As we jump from the first lily pad to the next
Fighting as we always will to stay above the changing tides...
And to the ripples that will some day reverberate back to us in new waters,
We look forward to meeting you.
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