Language Is Overrated

*a few curse words and death (sensitive issues)

Language

The very origin of communication having begun as a frustrated lot of raw primitive body language conjoined with weird grunts and clicks in order to be able to coexist with the fellow human. Just our eyes, fingers verifying to another “yes” or “no”, “that way”,” this way”.

 Our species developed and expanded (over many millennia and controversy, God or Darwin potato or poeTOT oh) into the fragmented masses of incomprehensible multitudes of peoples tribes and colonies then forming into these little humanoid things called nations and continents and races… if that isn’t enough to shove into this cranium of mush, let us then separate the vastly ever growing organisms at the rate of whatever school of thought or religion you believe in and sprinkle in each distinguishing culture, each spliced race into yet another race a new politic of that day, a social joke of whimsy for that era- even an environmental element that only pertains to that specific geographical area and would give that ‘language’ an advantage above all others in the global (or universal, if you want to expand this argument to aliens and and other worldly creatures…buuutt, that wouldn’t work, because they know everything and would already know what every language is because they ‘ah wicked smaht’ as the Bostonian dialect would put it.) communication.

This disconnect of all the many wonders of inner language within sectors in a ‘pre-tech’ world would certainly isolate ‘outsiders’, as it bonded the ‘insiders’ to the broken-down slangs and dialects within each separate language, not even knowing the native itself, splicing and separating like a contagion, for every new trend and fad and new phrase according to THAT specific clique, of era, of age, of region, of nationality and so on.

A new word either briefly snuffs out like a weak campfire that doesn’t catch, ‘puh-tooing’ and weezing like that winter lung with pneumonia without any passion or fight, no real backup or effort to keep the “pop” afloat, it simply just lies down and surrenders itself to the ‘word’ graveyard, i.e., the Eeyore character in the land of “Words That Ever Were And Are Because They Have Been” “Well gee, thanks for noticing me” (sulking and kicking the ground as the dust rises to the air) berderberderba der…..

Then there are those words that sear with such reverence, such deep emotional resonance that you are transcended by what the word piques within each of your senses. This word cannot be simply ‘described’.

It IS.

It is like describing the intangible, while drinking a glass of water, not just water though… cucumber water, with lemon, AND MINT! The slices of lemon and cucumber so thin swimming in this cold glass of ice water on a hot day with that refreshing kick of mint that you feel the healing within your veins as you sip this mother earth’s elixir while dancing disco on of a taxi in the middle of 1920….Cha Cha Cha… those words you read them and connect immediately. Because, baby- disco in the 20’s just ain’t real…

You’re drawn into the definition of the word, not only because it’s more than just a “noun”, a “thing” , an “it” blandly described liked an autobot… no… this word comes from some historic etherical place. You are reading this “word” and it is spiritually tapping into the universe and making the world more sensical…These words are the words that have always been. These words are as mysterious as religion, as they have no beginning or ending, they are as timeless as we are trivial in this speck of dust. You get this word because it brings a sense of all of us into a connection. A feeling.

Only an Etymologist can lecture on such a subject. I am not this.

It becomes more confusing and complicated when adding in the human body to this written and verbal script. This tone, this mannerism. I think it was so much more honest and pure in the beginning. There were no words. Your eyes told it all. Of course, it was more brutal, but it truly WAS what it was. Today, everything is a lie.

Let us not get too ‘science-y’ (reel it in Sarah, reel it the fuck in.-)

I still am incapable of this human, supposed innate- to most, form of communication.

My dad, my hero, my best friend in this whole universe, was the lefty side of the brain. He would sit on one end of that creaky, antique oak, cigarette-stained, dining room table intently focused on his physics (with water marks where his Irish whisky would sit in about 4 or 5 hours only for a moment for him to change one of his vinyl records) equations FOR FUN, while I, the righty side, did my sketching on the other side; my fine point pencils and erasers in an organized pile with his calculators and rulers. Both of our mediums would mix in the center of the table as we’d be intent on our projects and we’d occasionally zoom back from our euphoric ‘other worlds’ to joke about our territories merging.

****

Those gawddamned gargantuan headphones…. The stereo was on level 10 I heard it pulling up into the driveway “…Baby Take My Hand…don’t fear the reaper…We’ll Be Able To Fly…don’t fear the reaper.. Baby I’m Your Man…”….

“Jesus Mary and Fucking Joseph in the house on Sunday” I would yell at him” Turn the MUSIC DOWN FOR GOD’S SAKE”!!! The sheer terror of envisioning his ear drums blowing out like a demolition in slow motion repeat. It was unnerving. But there he would stand, unaffected by my concern with that dreamy little smile, like he knew he was going to be ok, like I was one of the guys that just walked in to one the bars the have a beer with him. That agitated me more. Didn’t he see I cared about him? I love him for fucks sake. He is me Pops. 

There he would stand. Right leg erect (only leg really holding the gravity in place, I always pictured an iron beam, like on a construction site. Just that one leg not moving), his left leg, a mind of its own stomping to whatever jams Pops had in play… from deep south blues, to jazz, to 70’s rock, to 80’s new wave. He was a jazz bass player…(not professionally, on his off time) so he picked out the bass guitar in ALL music… and so it seems, did so did in that left leg as well. Tonight it was Blue Oyster Cult, Don’t Fear The Reaper…

 He just smiled. Like he was high, high on love and life. Always did. Never was a bad drunk. I had seen a few sad inebriations, but dad was grateful for the little things. This particular ear demolition (there were many) was a good buzz. Pabzt Blue Ribbon in right hand as he inhaled deep through his nostrils and his huge blue eyes just stared as he filled his mouth full of liquid memories, he fixed his fatherly stare on his offspring, although his thoughts were in the 60’s when he was dating her mother, racing cars and being a kid.

Zooming into the present day, he had to adjust his focus, his mental state. A “mini me” broke into his little world bubble.That twisted scowl, pointing at that stereo then at the headphones, back at the stereo. It was all mute, her message- but she loved him so much that she was losing her shit with worry for some ridiculous reason. It was cute. She had just come in from dancing with her friends. She had the entire world ahead of her. Life is good. Now I am going to set my beer down and pick up my whiskey. What am I going to listen to next? We are connected, me and that one. Little whipper snapper. She will get it one day…

I received the phone call just a few weeks before Christmas (His birthday) He died 8 months later a few weeks before my birthday, in my arms saying my name.

I’ve spent the last 13 years (my alarm is set every day for the last breath that he took) thinking of his alone moments. Of our personal jokes, of our laughing and his advice, of his loyalty… of my failures, of my stupidity and my unrelenting ability to put my trust in the wrong person.

His language was the last language I have ever trusted or understood. No mixed jargon. No missed deadlines, no lies, no half-truths. No “lost in translation”

When he died, I lost the last person that genuinely believed in me. He wanted nothing but my company and some jokes. We may even bicker, but it always ended with laughing.

What is the point of language anymore? We are all on repeat and rut mode. Language is a “bond” or “break” … God I miss my best friend.

“Jesus Christ Sarah, It’s not the end of the world. People die every day.”

“Well, It’s the end of MY world…because you don’t die everyday.”