Tom Meitner

The first time words profoundly affected me was a moment that I don’t even remember, but a memory that I enjoy hearing retold by my mother.

I was a young child - maybe three or four years old. My mom raised me with books: she read to me often as my brain developed, and I learned to love the written word. And, apparently, I paid close attention. While some children hear books being read to them and imagine the worlds that are being created through descriptions, at some point I started studying the pages that my mom was reading from. I listened intently at how her mouth formed the sounds and the pace at which she read. I watched and followed the strange shapes that were printed on the page and pieced together the English language for the first time in my life.

One day, I brought a book to my mom and sat down. I wanted to reverse the roles. She was stunned to watch her youngest child reading the book to her - probably very poorly, but in an acceptable way nonetheless. She didn’t sit down and teach me words. She didn’t work out all the different combinations of letters with me. I likely knew my ABCs, but that was about it.

My father came home from a long day at work. My mom told him that I wanted to read him a book. My dad, as unaffected as any father or four boys would be, wasn’t all that interested, figuring it would be one of those, “Look at the cute thing Tommy did today!”-type moments. But my mom persisted, and my dad took me on to his lap with the book in hand. I opened it up and began reading it to him.

According to my mom’s memory, my dad thought maybe I had just memorized the story, so he opened the book to random pages and pointed to words, asking me to read them, which I did, to his amazement.

My very first reading experience was full of rewards, like impressing my parents - even my father. Thus began my love affair with words, which continues to this day. It offers rewards much more personal, but just as wonderful.

I don’t remember why I chose to start writing. Or at least when. I don’t remember why I wanted to be with certain girls in the first place, when my wife was always around. I don’t remember who it was that inspired me the most throughout my life, or who I wound up modeling myself after. Maybe it was a combination of people. I don’t remember what the name of many obscure television shows are, yet I watched them every single day because I had nothing else to do. I don’t remember when the last time I just drove around without thinking about how much gas was in the tank, how much gas is, how long it was going to take to get to my destination, and how fast was I going. I don’t remember how to glue something to a piece of paper without all those wrinkles in the paper because the glue is gloppy and uneven.

I don’t remember lots of things. It’s amazing what you don’t remember until something jogs it. I was going through an old box that I didn’t know existed, full of old papers and art projects from when I was in grade school. Looking through all of them, memories came flooding back to me from first grade, when I created many of those things. Yet they seemed like they never happened, because they were so long ago. I’m going to be 26 years old this year, so I can safely say that some of that stuff is twenty years old. I found old yearbooks from grade school and saw images of people who, at the time, were some of the only people in the world I knew, yet they escaped my memory so quickly once they left school.

I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember

I don’t remember the last time I just sat around and watched TV with no end in sight. That’s kind of a repeat thought from the “I Remember” freewrite, so I don’t want to dwell on that for too long. But I don’t remember not having a job, even though the first 14 years of my life were free from jobs. That’s still over half of my life spent without working, yet all I can think about now is work, work, work. How sad is that?

Do you think kids will ever look at adults and say, “You know what? I think we’re fine right here the way we are.” I never thought that. All I know are kids who can’t wait to grow up and adults who wish they were kids. I don’t remember that ever being different.

I don’t remember where we stored all my old action figures, or if I threw away any of them. I thought they were in the attic, but my mom says they aren’t. Again - something that was such a big part of my life, and now I can’t even remember where they are.

I don’t remember not being able to read. I read some of my old papers now and I laugh at how horribly spelled they are, and how messy they are. Yet they made sense to me at the time. That happens too much in life - the messages we are communicating are so clear to us, yet completely baffling to other people.

I remember when my world was so small, yet so big. I came from a class of 5-6 kids in grade school, and the graduating class wound up being only three. When I was young, that was the extent of my pool to choose friends from. As a result, I had no real friends outside of family members.

I remember the only routes I would take for weeks on end would be within a 5-mile radius of my house. We lived less than five minutes away from church and school, and I was 5 minutes away from my best friend’s house. I never had to go anywhere or do anything. The idea of going somewhere other than church or school was always something of an adventure.

I remember I remember I remember I remember I remember

I remember when I could sit around in the evenings, playing with toys. I remember when I could lie on the floor of the living room, creating worlds with action figures, whether they were fantasy crime-filled cities from Batman, fantasy streets for Ninja Turtles, or jam-packed arenas for the WWF wrestlers. I spent hours doing this. When I was bored or lonely, I would slip into these fantasy worlds at will. I could shut the door of my bedroom and escape.

Some days, I wish I could escape again. I sit and feel bogged down by the weight of the world: expectations from others, endless debts, and the pressure of finding my career path. Being a writer is not a glamorous job, nor is it well-paying at first. I’ve worked hard for 5 years and I still feel the pressure of not knowing where to turn to next. I hate that.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days when staying up until 2am in the summertime was not only a possibility, but it was expected. When I could waste away an afternoon watching a movie or flipping through old reruns on cable. When I didn’t worry about bills, or my future.

When I could just be a kid. But most of the time, we’re not allowed to be kids anymore. It makes me sad that this time has passed. Sometimes I sit quietly while the pressures of the adult world clamp down on my temples and try to remember what it was like to not be stressed - to not worry. I want to remember what it was like to just relax and enjoy life, to close out the stresses around me and just float along for a little while.

When I was a kid, I could do that. My stresses of loneliness were easy to escape from. But the stresses of adulthood chase after you until you run out of breath and collapse. Then they pounce on you.

I consider myself to be a strong person, but every strong person has their weaknesses: their Achilles heel that pushes them down when they are standing up a little too straight. Mine is doubt. Hopefully someday, I will be able to escape its grasp.

Lie to yourself - what’s the point? You already know the answer.

I think it’s sad when our brains are so deluded that we think we can lie to ourselves. Yet, somewhere, deep down, below the surface, lies the truth.

Lies are a part of being human. They keep us all together, we all lie to ourselves. Why? What’s the point? Why do we lie? Do we lie because we think life will turn out better for us? I don’t think so. Do we lie because we think that nobody else will notice? Sure. But we notice. We notice every time.

Instead of lying to ourselves, we need to find where the truth really lies. When we do that, we find the answers to our problems. We cover up our problems with lies to ourselves. That’s the whole reason why. We do it to hide.

We are like little children curling up behind a dumpster with our chins resting on our knees, hoping that, when the problems of our lives count to 100, they yell out “Ready or not, here I come!” and then they never find you again, until you are ready to come out and laugh at them.

We are all children. Lying is an immature reaction to a problem. But once we discover what the problem is, we need to be honest to ourselves about its consequences, and what it’s going to take to solve the problem in the first place. Honesty is where it’s at, people. Keep on being honest, with yourself and others, and that’s where you find the real power of your brain and what you can do with it.

Sometimes, our minds play tricks on us, so the trust between brain and person is completely warped. We don’t trust our brains and our brains can’t trust us. Our brains play tricks on us and we lie right back to them. How warped is that? Makes me sad. If we can’t trust our brains, who can we trust?

Our brains are in control of our bodies. Think of your worst enemy: would you let him or her control your body? You don’t trust that person, so why would you? And yet, we don’t trust our brains enough to be honest with them. That’s why we lie. We lie because we think our brains can’t handle it.

For some reason, in this world, we’ve decided that the best thing we can do for our brains is hide the reality of the situation. We want to escape our brains all the time. That’s why we watch TV and movies, and we engulf ourselves in the endless nonsense of celebrity personal lives. We don’t want to be stuck thinking - because we sell our brain short.

It’s like Bart Simpson (of all people) once said:

Brain: “Well, buddy, it looks like it’s just you and me now.”

Bart: “Great, I get to spend the whole summer with my brain…”

That was sarcasm, because Bart doesn’t think his brain can do much for him. Yet, that’s where we form thoughts, opinions, emotions. That’s where bravery and fear come from. That’s what keeps up going. It’s what controls us, and we control it all the same.

Stop selling your brain short. Don’t lie to it every waking moment. There is no sense in doing so. Without the trust of your brain, you stop using it, and that winds up hurting you in the end. Stop lying to your brain. Tell it the truth and give it some time to analyze the situation and try to come up with a solution. You might be surprised at how much your brain really knows. Our brains are like ridiculously powerful supercomputers crammed into our skulls. We have much more power in our brains than any computer does. You might be surprised when you really test it.

Turn off the TV. Turn off the music. Get away from the computer. Just sit and listen to what your brain has to say. You might just be impressed. Force your brain to think until it hurts. Deep inside that brain are the answers to your problems, whatever they might be. They might not be easy, but they will be honest. Just like you should be with your brain.

I don’t know what else to write. I am forcing my brain to come up with more words to hit a certain word count. And while I am struggling to come up with a topic, I am not struggling to type more words. These words flow freely from my brain to my fingertips, without even trying. It’s amazing how much your brain knows when you just give it the chance to work its magic for a while.

A time out had been called.

Peter slowly peeled the helmet off his head as sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He looked toward the sky, breathing heavily, his brain racing as if he were behind the wheel in a NASCAR race heading into the final lap. The beam of the lights nearly blinded him.

He snapped his head down and held his eyes closed, hoping he would get his sight back. Obviously he did. But he knows that it would have been much easier if he were blind.

Son, Gatemore University wants you - badly. But we need to know that you are serious. We take great pride not only in our college program, but our high school program as well. Since your team is playing our high school team Friday night for the state championship, you have a decision to make: who are you going to be loyal to? We can’t trust you if you want to beat us - we need to know that you are in this for serious business.

Peter kept replaying the conversation in his head. The gravelly voice of the Gatemore scout painted the picture of years of talking to young, wet-behind-the-ears players and decades of building a solid football program. But he couldn’t believe his ears when he was told the first time: throw the state championship.

Gatemore University shared towns with Hamilton High. A great school with a great football program, Gatemore had offered Peter a full ride through college. Growing up on a farm raising dairy cows, Peter never knew of a life with money. He had expected to just go back to the farm after high school because college was too damned expensive. But now, to go to Gatemore, he had to let Hamilton win the state championship. It was the most bizarre request he had ever received.

He snapped back into reality when the whistle blew. He gathered his teammates, all of whom were gasping for breath. They were on the biggest drive of their young lives, and it was the last play of the game. Peter had to decide.

As they lined up in the formation, Peter quietly said a prayer to himself that he was doing the right thing. The ball was in his hands and the defensive lineman were chasing him down. Thirty-six yards to go for a touchdown, and there was no time left. If he takes the sack, or throws an interception or completion, he goes to Gatemore University. If he completes it and scores the touchdown, he goes back to dairy cows.

Nobody was open, and Peter knew that he didn’t want to play for a school that was trying to get him to lose. In a flash, he took off down the sideline, his breath heaving harder and harder with each step. The free safety was on his heels, and just as he was about to be tripped up and knocked out of bounds, he leaped into the air.

He briefly felt like Superman: arms outstretched in front of him. Time slowed down for a second, just enough for him to scream in his head, “Let’s GO already!!” The ball crossed the plane of the end zone. The game was over.

His teammates piled on top of him, and friends and family cheered in the stands. But that scout wasn’t cheering. He hung his head as if to say, “You blew it, kid. What were you thinking? You could have had it all.”

At the trophy presentation, Peter looked out at the smiling crowd as he raised the state championship trophy. He knew he made the right choice. There were no guarantees about the future - but he knew this was one he could win right now.

Two weeks later, a scout from Bennington College called him up. That next fall, he started taking snaps for the Bennington Wildcats - on a full scholarship.

It starts with a single little drop. That drop is the messenger. It cuts through the moist, dew-y air and plummets miles and miles down in mere seconds. As it crashes down onto the sidewalk, it explodes into several drops. As it lays there, broken and busted, the message is clear:

“My friends are coming. A lot of them.”

As you stand underneath the awning outside the bakery, your nostrils fill with the aroma of yeast and flour, and your mouth waters slightly when the warm, fresh bread smell wafts out the door as another customer leaves. You gaze up at the sky, which was once a bright, vibrant blue, now subdued by the murkiness of gray. The sun is pushing and shoving the clouds out of the way in the distance, punching its rays through with one last gasp. In minutes, the clouds will have overmatched the sun and beaten it into submission.

The sunglasses you were once protecting your eyes with are now resting on the top of your head, useless. The rain drop’s friends start trickling in, like the first guests of a block party: they make their presence known, you can see all of them, and they don’t make a whole lot of noise yet because the rowdy ones haven’t shown up - but they are on their way.

The ground underneath your feet shudders as thunder rolls through the sky. Your sandals have worse shocks than your ‘93 LeBaron, so your feet vibrate. That heavenly scent coming from the bakery has been overtaken by the humid, stale-yet-refreshing atmospheric change that precedes the big storm. It’s the kind of air where you take one whiff of it and think, “Ooo, this is going to be a big one!”

Your eyes snap shut briefly as the flash of lightning grabs your attention. Your eyes burn as if someone took a photo of you in a dark room with a bright flash. But this time, there’s no one to punch in the arm for being a jerk, and there will be no half-blinky picture of you tagged on Facebook later tonight.

Then the party starts. Just like the rookie drunks showing up already blitzed on Fleischmann’s vodka, the rain screams in and starts crashing into things. You glance around as people scurry to get into their cars or under awnings. The boring gray of the sidewalk grows darker with each drop.

You are hypnotized not by the falling rain, but by the rising rain. When a drop splashes onto the hood of a car or the fabric of an umbrella, you notice the drops that seem to jump up, trying to get back in the air. You wonder if they miss the clouds or they just want to go for another ride, like a kid at the bottom of a crazy water slide who can’t wait to climb back up the stairs for another run.

But you snap out of it for a second, realizing that you have an afternoon date to get to, and you will have cold feet, limp and lifeless hair (that you spent 15 minutes working on this morning), and will likely be peeling the clothes off your damp skin every chance you get when she’s not looking, clenching your teeth until your jaw is aching because you don’t want to shiver.

Stupid rain. Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?