No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. No Kings.
My son pauses the game to say, “One time the wind was blowing so hard
you could even see it. It was gray, and it pushed against you when you walked.”
Can’t do it. No. At Dell’s such is not true. We are our own bosses. We are all drum-trained for eight weekends of personalized DNA based mastisticized one-on-one bootcampery, that we are self-managing. We are responsible for our own development. If laws have been broken, contact local law enforcement. Otherwise, as Everest stands on its own, so do we.
In short, as I am saying "What do you think you'll order for dessert?" my mind is churning with reaction to surrounding activity—talk, laugher, clatter, people rushing past, etc. Much but not all of this churning is conscious, much is subconscious. But, if you wanted to dig deep enough, perhaps a novel could be dug from those twenty seconds.
Sometimes I pitied Amma for having to relentlessly perform her role and live up to Appa’s expectations. The roles and rules were very clear. Amma and I were occupants of this house. Appa was the owner. Amma was a tenant in their marriage, Appa, its owner. It didn’t leave me with a rosy picture of marriage.
Reading is like a sea. If we’re pushed into it, we learn to survive — just like Pi Patel. If we jump into it willingly, we swim. Either way, we change significantly.
She gave some reason for the cancellation, something about a family event that slipped her mind until about an hour before our meet up. I suspected she was clearing her schedule for someone higher on her roster, but I didn’t say anything. “It’s okay,” I told her over the phone, and was the first to hang up.