Answer the Call
This week, I was cleaning out my small third-floor loft. It’s a whimsical room with one tiny antique paned window with a view of tree tops, the Catskill mountains, and river. Sometimes I can see the moon. I am readying this cozy space to possibly be my new bedroom. It’s a place I write in, surrounded by ancestor ephemera and a stack of boldly printed fabric folded into squares neatly lining the wall. While cleaning off my desk I found precious things buried under piles of “save-it-for-later” stuff. I found my apple pie blue ribbon and a torn page from my journal written sometime early last year. The page was crumpled with black pen scribbled in prose as my thoughts landed on their own lines.
I want to know the meaning of the shapes of words.
Why is W shaped as two wings?
Why is M two mountains?
I want to know why a machine can discover the three-hundred dimensions of the sounds of our language and create a three-hundred dimension cloud replica using the language of math.
I want to understand how different languages can be visually transposed on one another for translation of meaning.
I want to understand why there are twenty six remaining original words and Mother and Spit are two of them.
I want to see how many of us can recognize the word Love when it’s not spelled the way we think it should be.
I want to cut all the words away from all languages until only one word remains.
Under all languages is one language. I want to find that one.
I was surprised. How long have I been carrying forward this desire to know language as a lover? I think longer than I know. Reading my words again I feel in some way they are a manifesto; a declaration of my desire. Maybe even spellwork.
What if our life’s work is simple, in that it’s simply to respond to our desires call. The less simple act is to listen for and to our desire when it calls.
Can you hear something calling you? What is calling you? Is it a surprise? Has it been calling for as long as you can remember or is it a new message? Does your phone ring off the hook or only once in a while? Are you answering?