Not all nuance fits in a story. I could write a thousand journals and never mention that I mispronounce words more often than not. I learned them in a book, probably, or from someone who speaks English as if it is made from the alphabet they were raised to sing. In their childhood, sand sometimes folds over the horizon without ever reaching an ocean. Statues of Gods are so tall that you'd have to climb a mountain to look one in the eyes. In their childhood, you can trip over a vase made 5 generations ago, or dance in a building built hundreds of years before the ground of my county ever knew we would name it some day. In their childhood, alphabet letters have dots and waves. Some of their letters are ten of ours, some of our letters make sounds I cannot hear. I learned my words from them, and from books, and you'd hear it in how I often mispronounce my words, if we were having coffee.
You'd see my nail polish, how I paint it all over my fingers. You'd see the layers upon layers I wear, and how I take them off and put them on with a distracted regularity. You'd hear me be bossy.
You'd hear my laugh, how it either sounds like "ha!", or how it rolls in like thunder made of confetti and fireworks.
My eye contact varies. Sometimes I'll look you directly in the eyes and stare you down as you talk. I'm trying to read your eyes. I'm more of a reader than a listener, you see, but I try. Sometimes you'll wonder what I'm looking at, but the answer is nothing, and everything.
I'll cough, a lot, and I'll apologize for it. I'll interrupt you, and then repeat your last sentence to you ten minutes later, asking you to continue a thought. I'll reach into my bag and pull out once strange thing, or two, or three, and you'll wonder if I packed the bag for you or just in case.
Just in case, of course.
You might ask me what I want to do, and you'll hear no answer, or twenty. I drink my coffee cold, hot, black, sweetened, however you're having it. Whatever is easiest. You'll see my shift in my seat, until you're tempted to ask if I'm okay, but I am. I'd tell you if I wasn't, like a toddler- blunt and abrupt. I'll apologize after, but I apologize so much you might not hear it.
And sometimes you might not hear me at all. My voice hits pitches that sound like whispers, but you'll hear me when I want to do something. "Let's go, let's go, let's go," sounds cute on paper, but it's a lot more terrifying in person. It's harder to avoid me when something is stuck in my head and you're sitting within a reasonable distance.
Which is why you'll take a picture with me, or let me take a picture of something that represents you to me. I'll ask, and if it doesnt work, I'll plead, and if it doesn't work, I'll get outrageous.
And this is usually the point that you'll look at me and say, "You're exactly how I thought you'd be." And I'll wonder how that can be when I never told you all the strange and irritating little quirks that make up my very human reality. I'll wonder if you imagine my real voice when I write- reading fluidly and then in stacatto, and then in a low rumble, and then with a blankness that makes me sound like a robot, and then with so much emotion that my eyes fill with rain and my laughter storms. I wonder if you feel like you've known me a long time, or if you feel like we just met.
I wonder, and I'll ask, but first I'll let you sip your coffee and pick the picture we should post. I might forget until you mention tornadoes, and then I'll interrupt you to ask, but don't worry, I'll remember where we left off.
And if we need to put some more tea on, or get another coffee, then so be it. We have time.
