By Christina Issa
A man reads my palms. I'm holding back tears, then crying for minutes. Don't let them see.
I'm thinking about writing a play. About the brain. Specifically the disconnect between what we think and what we do. It's called cognitive dissonance. In reality this is evidenced by the world-wide human struggle to simply co-exist, and the subsequent identity crisis literally and figuratively dismantling humanity's bridges. We've disconnected from our souls while outsourcing our joy to the external world, only to be met by disappointment over and over. Am I wrong? Too many simple minds that can't process nuance, nor tolerate human difference and change that wield too much power and influence for society's good.
I don't know what else to write. So I just write what I know. But then again I know nothing.
Life has been like trying to fit a cube into a round hole. I don't want a stubborn life. Or any analogy that improves it.
The human condition is an effect of all the things we have no control over, yet are trying endlessly to force into shape. Instead life shapes us but we still deny that it has a force of its own. Everything we do or don't do has a direct impact on our lives and on other's lives. We think we have control, and yet we have so close to none, in the big scheme, it is negligible. So what to do with this information?
The universe is vast, remember this. A full cosmic stretch would probably bump into many multiverses. Think of a Swiss cheese block but so vast that it's literally innumerable and spans universes....and we live inside one tiny hole. But we think we are the entire block of cheese. Lunatics.
Nobody thinks about this stuff, but I do. I internalize it. The palm reader knows. Internal turmoil he says.
You have self confidence issues, he says. You must value yourself more he says, like other's do. Your life is shit, according to my palm. Get your shit together he basically says. Ok. Thanks.
I think about being seven again and being the last kid picked for a team of a game of elementary kickball.
No one thinks about this stuff. Identity, where we came from and the space we occupy now -- sitting in traffic with round shrubs and iron gates staring back at you for miles. Where the hell are we even going?
But back to the brain. What goes on in our mind? And can this be recorded and documented in a meaningful poetic way? I'd like to understand what of the mind is reflected back into the external world and how does it crawl out of the brain dome of our skull. Is it in the palm? Can our bodies tell us something more about ourselves perhaps more than we even know how to handle? How quickly do we run away when the mirror is crystal clear and scares the shit out of us? The horror. But the palm reader knows. His dog is my friend, sitting on the porch around Persians and cigarettes like it is home. We're doing a garage sale today. My boyfriend's sister owns so much expensive shit it's disgusting. Just lighting money on fire.
The palm reader talks a lot. I'm tired and want to yell at him to go away. He just made me cry and for what! I did not ask to be transparent and interesting. But anyway, he could have read me from a mile away. I might as well get a story out of it.
