Thursday, February 01, 2007

making sense out of the ends

There's a study that was done that showed people could make actual sense out of scrambled words and read them as long as the first and last consonents were correct. Like this:

Atfer mnay yaers , Ireasl geav geart patires.

Seems like that's all I have these days, the ends. The middle, where I spent all my time, is jumbled and random. Each situation in my life references the mess before and the one after, which helps to make sense of the whole sentance. Annoying little picture, really. I half expect at least one word to be spelled correctly all the way through. But I don't get that luxury.

I know how the story ends, essentially. It goes a lot like it did last year at this time. A lifting, and leaving. Exhiliaration. I know pretty much how it began. Not that I remember, but the letters of that event are familiar enough. So it has context.

We are completely broke, and owe money to just about everyone we know. A few jumbled letters. Then Mei An begins to get an odd eye twitch and we suddenly owe some people we didn't know before. And our checks bounce, while we try to raise money for an idea that may or may not succeed. That's how risk is. Jumbled and random, with a few ends that look right. We're one step ahead of foreclosure and our cars are falling apart, but still running. I live in the exact place I want to, a small house for a large family, but we all love each other deeply. Chaos and order, both hanging on to each other like frightened monkeys.

I'm learning to be thankful for the parts that make sense of the things that remain mysterious. If I look too hard, too closely, I see the mess and miss the meaning. Funny that. What I should be doing is reading quickly past it all, glancing at the sentance so that I see that "After many years, Israel gave great parties." Only see context and ends. The mess in the middle, taken for what it is, happens to be indiscernable no matter how hard I look at it. So next time, maybe I can chalk it up to a curiousity and nothing more.

What I should be more interested in is the actual sentance. And the day I read: "Mtsier Duroos, it's teim to ceom to hvean", better be the day I sell everything and give it to the poor...which may be my own children. The ends...today that's all I can be thankful for, the rest is just a mess.