journal-01/12/00

01/12/00

Sometimes I wonder why some people insist on being so mysterious. Or swearing that they're mysterious.

I think of my "tell it like it is friend," J. Everyone needs someone like that in their lives-- helps remind us to keep it real.

What's the "it"? Life. The little tiny stories of triumph and tragedy that make up our lives. Sometimes all we hear are the headlines, no content. We make up the content that we don't know just so we can have something to pass along to the next collection of stories, to the next person.

I am a collection of short stories.

To know what someone is about, we have to listen. Be in tune. Echo spoken thoughts, resonate within us.

Ani Difranco.

Her collection of short stories is outspoken, punctuated with big breaths and heaving sighs of relief, relief to have finally passed the story on to someone else, to a lot of someone elses.

And she has just begin speaking to me. And I wonder why it's taken me so long to listen? What was I afraid of? That I would like her too much? That I would identify with her stories too much? That the very first time I heard her voice I would sing along, anticipate her next note, her next word?

I think what makes us afraid to get to know others sometimes is that fear that we're going to get to know too much about ourselves... who was it who said there is a piece of us in every other human we come in contact with...