My friend Kali’s recent post about the myriad sides of ourselves, some of which we indulge, and some of which we blatantly deny, started a train of thought chugging along in my head that I haven’t been able to stop.
Having also semi-recently read Gaiman’s Neverwhere (Are you tired of me talking about Neil Gaiman yet? TOO BAD, HA!) the idea of cities that aren’t really cities swirling above cities that are really cities, and the study of the general antithesis of things, has become a prominent theme in my imagination.
You see, in Neverwhere there is “London Above,” that is, London as we all know (or wish we knew) it. There is also an (in my opinion) even more amazing and eclectic array of non-city called “London Below,” reachable only by fully abandoning London Above.
The idea that I myself have my very own London Above and London Below (and that you probably do, too) is one that is endlessly fascinating to me.
What would the landscape of Kerri Below look like?
Maybe I would be a world-wide traveler, escaping to far away places on a routine basis to fulfill the wanderlust in me.
Maybe I would be a local hermit in a quiet village, happily writing away my days as I sit with my eyes to an open window facing the ocean, salt-water mixing with my five senses as I tell story after sea-faring story.
Maybe I would play roller derby, skating myself around a track with teammates cheering me ever-forward.
Maybe I would sell everything I own and move to another country to serve a cause, a people, a need.
Maybe I would teach kindergarten or fifth grade in a sleepy community where neighbors still bake pies for block parties, or maybe I would be a professor of Literature in a bustling college town.
Maybe I would live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere and ride horses to my heart’s content.
Maybe I would swim competitively, pushing my body’s boundaries to the limits while I glide through water I’ve always felt at home in.
Maybe I would learn to draw, to paint, to illustrate, and create colorful visuals to rest alongside my words.
Maybe I would immerse myself in French culture in an attempt to prove to myself that I do, in fact, remember how to speak the language.
Maybe I would learn to cut and sew, adorn and dye fabric, and make my own clothes.
Maybe I would be the Marine Biologist the 12-year-old-me always wanted to be.
Or, maybe, just maybe, I would do/be/see all of this, and more.
I’m beginning to see there’s nothing stopping me, but me.
Stories I said I had. Tangential stories and life-changing ones.
Until today I haven’t known where, exactly, to begin. And so quiet this space has mostly been because some beginnings are tricky. Sometimes it’s quite impossible to denote where something ended and something else entirely began.
I’m not going to be able to tell you everything, but then the best stories never really do, do they?
(That’s not a trick question. I promise they don’t.)
(Unless the story was penned by Henry James, in → Read more...
This week I’ve been finding pieces of writing long lost and forgotten. Unearthing words belonging to me, and words penned by some of my favorite of all literary voices, collected and saved and scrawled excitedly on pages littered with foggy memories of past lives, obscured now in light of all that was and is and is to come.
Of the words not belonging to me, Lucille Clifton’s were the ones I found most often, recounted in notebook after notebook, or inked → Read more...
They say water changes stone, carving it over time to angles and dimensions in harmony with water’s need to reach the sea; but sometimes, stones change the watercourse instead.
-The lovely and eclectic Shari
I’m collecting my favorite corners, like the one with the stunning oak tree on display for an entire neighborhood to see, its limbs shading a bustling crosswalk shooting confidence into pedestrians like electric currents of white light, fresh graffiti on a nearby curb: an infinity symbol, black and simple.
I’m collecting stories about the apartment window filled with small elephant figurines along one of my favorite walking routes. So many trunks standing side-by-side and none of them alive.
I’m collecting the surprisingly → Read more...