Introduction

dear friend, 

who are you?

isn't it funny to think of how close we might be, as i write this to you?

you could be that person in the corner of the library with a stack of books you are assiduously avoiding.
you could be leaving our favorite cafe just as I enter it.
you could be that person on the train keeping time to the song in your headphones with kicks against my ankle.
i could be that person who keeps blowing their nose too loudly, that person whose bag-strap breaks on the way out the door, that person who falls asleep and begins to snore when you are trying to read. 

where are we today?
we could be in New York, or in Los Angeles--which one do you hate more?
with just a small tip of the pay scale, we could be in Hoboken, or Sausalito.
we could be in Natchez, Mississippi or in Sioux, South Dakota.
we could be in Amsterdam--that's my vote...or in Venice, or Strasbourg, or Budapest.
we could be in Khartoum. i haven't been there yet. have you?

we could be in Quebec, Quebec.  i have family there, and i owe them a visit.

when i was younger, and my brother was practically still a baby, we used to say that when we grew up we were going to be pirates together and hunt for treasure around the world on a ship.  i still have a small hope for that plan to work out.  i haven't spent much time on the ocean--i do mean on it;  i've spent a fair amount of time in it--but i'm familiar with the phenomenon of sailors who can't stay on land for very long at a time.  it drove me crazy to come to the end of the Odyssey and find that odysseus was ready to go again, so soon after his war-like homecoming, so close to the end of the book.  i was waiting for the secret of staying put to be revealed.  i was hoping it would be demonstrated that his love for penelope would make everyday life the greatest adventure of all...  (swelling music and rosy sunsets to accompany)

yeah, that was a wash, in life as well as in epic.  i don't mean that as a judgment on love generally, nor on everyday life generally--just on my particular passes at them.  

i'm different, and so are you.  aren't we?  at any rate, we're not altogether the same as anybody else we know.  sometimes it's hard to be what i really am, even when i'm only looking in the mirror.  but we can be real with each other.  

here's to it.  

i'm bird.

who are you?