Sentence

One of the coolest chicks I know, Marie Nicole at My Cyber House Rules quoted Clare Boothe Luce- "A great man is one sentence."

And she asked, "What is your sentence?" 

It's so much more of a question than those five words belie.  

Most people will indulge themselves and say that they could never describe themselves in one sentence.  I will be honest.  That was my first thought, too.  

And then I was suddenly struck by the endless lists and questions and blanks to fill that would keep me busy for hours on end.   

Aimee is _____

Aimee loves ______

Aimee hates  ______

Aimee knows ______

Aimee wants ______

Aimee needs ______

As humans, we feed on filling in those blanks.  Defining ourselves.  Carving our place, where we fit.  Giving our souls a face and a voice.  We need for other people to see in us, not what we see, but who we want to be.  

We love these kinds of questions.  These kinds of exercises of awareness.  It gives us a chance to search ourselves, dive down in there, in the extremes of light and darkness, cold and burning, tagging ourselves with words and phrases.  

It's such a temptation for us, when we are asked to talk about ourselves.  Even the most self-loathing among us will dream enough beauty to balance the ogre wearing our clothes.  

I began to think.  The typical fare.  Aimee is a contradiction, a storydancer with two left feet, a woman with hairy toes, an ex-90s grungy punk rocker who refuses to grow up, a mother against her own better judgment who wishes she could be a stripper for a day to see what it's like.  Aimee is not an ocean, but more like a swamp- a collector of life, stagnant in some places, in others a breeding ground for the brilliance that grows in wicked and slimy things, beauty that pulses in swarms and ugliness waiting to attack, a mating call of desire from nowhere in particular, a threatening heckle from dark corners, shock of energy exploding to feed, languor of death as the chain comes full circle.

Oh yes.  I could say all those things.  I could sprinkle some semicolon pixie dust and make it one sentence.

But it is not each individual grain of sand that makes a great man.  It is the castle that is built by them.

And so I thought to myself.  What is the common thread that binds me and builds me and helps me to reach as high as life will let me in spite of the swelling tide?  What is it that makes my castle tall, my turrets sturdy, staring into the horizon among the clouds of greatness, longing to swim among the gods breathing life into stars?

And I knew then that there was only one answer.

Aimee is real.  

________________________________________________________________________________