Resonating
There are great lines in poems and songs and novels and essays and plays and anecdotes and declarations and last words and letters and diaries and jokes and pieces of advice and maybe even in dreams. Great lines resonate in the lives of more than the person who composed them. They create conversation while transcending it. They find their way into the personally inhabited spaces where this flame of who we are gives light and fuel and perhaps even inspiration. Light seems a metaphor for being able to see. Fuel implies movement. Inspiration can imply anything.
There is that line from Gatsby about forever wedding his visions to her perishable breath- That part of that sentence has always had a grip on me. A great line may happen when it reveals an internal truth that accurately depicts how things really are for you. The complete line is, “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.” But the rest of it did not speak to me the same way to me as those few words. Those few words are what makes it a great line for me and they are taken out of context.
There is an aspiration to a great line. “To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free…” Another fragment from a longer line that was meant to be sung. It inspires as much as it depicts. I know that I have longed to dance beneath that diamond sky since I first heard that line. I believe that I have longed to wed my visions to something that may be perishable. Is that a wish to keep the perishable longer alive?
Great lines can be funny. My wife contributes, “The check is in the mail.” At first I scoff and say that it is not a great line. It’s just a line. It is as pedestrian as it gets. But upon reflection it may speak volumes. It became a standard, a cliché. There is life circumstance embedded in that line. It means more than it says.
Must great lines have literary value?
A great line is sometimes a lament, or longing that will always be sought and yet never be totally attainable. What is it about our spirit that attempts the implausible, the impossible, and the ridiculous? What about that attracts us?
I am intrigued by the great lines that have changed people’s lives. I know the great lines that have entered my life by heart. Which means more than I have memorized them; I know them through emotional heart. If they are parts of songs, I replay them over and over, hoping that the doors of perception do not close but, by the incantation of repetition, open further. The poetry is recited in my head. “Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; and let the misty mountain-winds be free to blow against thee” There is a line that I have repeated to myself over and over. I don’t know why. I am not a devotee of Wordsworth, but for me that is a great line. The light of the moon and the inspiration of those winds seduce me.
I love novels but it is rare that I remember a passage to quote. Songs and poems have voices inside me. It is my prayer that I am worthy to live inside of them. Perhaps it is the romantic expression of the wish that creates the line. It is rare for me that the imagery of a novel can be conveyed in a line. There are exceptions, but mostly the novel needs at least a paragraph. Songs and poems are different.
“Don’t ya ride the Queen of Diamonds boy, she’ll beat you if she’s able. Ya Know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.” I envision these Queens as the Queens of my heart. When choosing it is not as much the allure of the beauty of the diamond as it is the warmth of the heart. And so I review my life, looking for where the diamonds trumped the hearts. But maybe the lens needs to be cleared, maybe diamonds and hearts get confused.

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

There it is. Incantation and dreams. Simplicity and devotion- It’s another fragment.

So I dream on great lines and you dream on yours and we become part of the dreams and the lines.
“I’m holding out my only candle, though it’s so little light to find my way.”

Our great lines are our candles. We keep the light.

Mnemosyne and Lethe

Forgetting and remembering seem to always be at odds. I am not good at forgetting and I am not sure that I want to be. Remembering and forgetting are a language of survival, but what happens if your forgetting seems to lag behind? I could be more of a fan of forgetting but I think that I have equated it with denial. I think that mostly we forget what we do not wish to remember.
Here are two salient thoughts. “History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” James Joyce wrote that and at the time it made me feel as if I were criminal to forget the collective history. I also applied that to my personal life. And then I thought about this, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It made me feel like a lab animal on a maze, repeating my history endlessly.

Sometimes remembering is painful for me but forgetting isn’t possible. I don’t know if that quirk serves me well. I do know that remembering and forgiving and asking forgiveness is more genuine and from that standpoint is more powerful than forgetting.
I feel that forgetting comes more easily to most, but I seem to struggle against that ease. I always thought it was a positive thing but growing older and hearing my wife say, “You can’t let anything go,” gives me pause.
We were at this party and she said, “I wanted to forget things about my past, about my childhood, but Ken wouldn’t let me. He kept picking at those places that I had tried so hard to forget.”
Noreen stared at me and said, “Why did you do that, Ken?”
I answered that I thought she would be better served if she did not deny what she knew to have happened. Noreen said, “How very therapeutic of you.” Then she swallowed some wine and laughed.
Later, in that same evening, we got around to talking about music. Allen said that we only remembered those songs that held personal meaning for us. I shook my head no and stared at Noreen.
“We were on the floor at Rahway, you Tom and me, and we were listening to Darkness on the Edge of Town for the first time. Racing in the Streets came on and I heard those opening lines and gazed into your eyes and knew that you were remembering your brother.”
Noreen looked stunned. Allen said, “Is he right?” and Noreen nodded.
She looked at me and whispered, “How did you remember that?” I had no real answer. I mumbled something about us both being city kids and later that night she took my hands and kissed my fingertips. Then it seemed to be forgotten and I struggle with knowing if my inability to forget these moments makes me their repository. Can an instant have, or even create, a soul?
It feels that much of what I write is creative recollection. Perhaps all recollection is somewhat creative, but I seem to have more of a need for it, and I do not know why. The search has taught me some things.
People often say of their deceased loved ones that they can no longer see a face. That’s when they rely on photographs, but although they come with a presence, they do not often carry a message. But if you can still hear how someone’s voice sounded on a phone, you achieve a form of contact, emotional and sincere, and aided by technology. A benefit not often ascribed to technology-
Is remembering an asset or a load of baggage?
My friend Allen once smiled at me and said, “I forget.” At the time I didn’t believe him, but I do now. There may be a form of forgetting that stretches beyond denial. I may have encroached its fragile boundaries. But perhaps doubt is one of the roots that nurtures memory.
Even, in this way, the vocabulary of those gone diminishes with time. It becomes only those emotionally charged instants that stay around. Times that achieve soul.
Aging is often associated with forgetting. There are a series of comics entitled, “My forgetter works better than my rememberer.” I have not found this to be the case. As I grow older, I prioritize differently. The focus of my attention is what commits something to memory. If I shift focus, I remember different things. The aromas of honeysuckle and lilac more so than the day of the week-
It is difficult to remember smell and sound without their inspiration. They seem to be the catalyst that inspires memory, but I am trying to remember them.
Forgetting can be a luxury, a necessity, an ailment, or a deliberate choice. Much of the time, remembering seems more driven. Do I remember because I cannot forget, or because I do not wish to?

Content without insight into a knowledge base leads to forgetting. We tend to not remember what we do not understand. Even if we mistakenly feel that we do understand, there little basis for remembering. Mnemosyne and Lethe in turmoil. Perhaps the idea of a muse stems from memory. Perhaps we remember what we wish to understand, or wish to control. Maybe memory is a form of control. Is it a vision of the past that can be sculpted?
Cultural memory and personal memory differ in their parentage. Both are engendered by remembrance. Cultural remembrance utilizes technology, but personal recollection does not. I have tried to merge the two in my novels. I have one prompting the other. It happens that way for me. It is just the creative depicting of a life in my mind.
Mnemosyne required memorization. Inculcation, chanting, prayer were some of her vehicles. How little she is known but how powerful the influence. She stops the transmigration of the soul. If such a thing actually exists then so does she. Is that memory as a preventative? Is the lack of memory a laxative?
Lethe seems to have fewer requirements, unless you are unable to meet them. What if you just can’t forget even after drinking from her? Does she curse you with the darker sides of memory?
Little is known of the personality of Mnemosyne. Am I part of her personality? The river of forgetfulness flows in me sporadically. I feel at home with Lethe and Mnemosyne. I remember and I forget. I suppose that is part of my condition and I think it a part of the condition of us all. But what we remember and forget is of endless curiosity.

Tastes of Larceny

My life has often been touched by larceny. Theft and larceny are close cousins, but larceny does not include the threat of force and yet robbery might. For as long as I remember, I have been touched by larceny.
My allowance was $.50 a week. It came from my dad on Saturdays when I went to work with him. We would usually have lunch at the drugstore luncheonette on the corner. My dad would have a newspaper for us and we would read. We didn’t live together and so this was a way for him to keep track of me.
We usually started and stopped with the sports section. I was eight years old. My dad loved sports and I worshipped my dad. I know it was winter because it was basketball season. The Knicks were playing the Celtics and I confused the two teams. My dad gave me a lesson in larceny that deprived me of $.25. He did not give it back.
The Celtics were an historic team, it was midway in the Bill Russell era. The Knicks were a dreadful team. I didn’t have it straight but still wanted to bet and so my dad took my quarter. He did not return it for a very long time, but he talked to me about how not knowing made a person ripe for plucking. It was the first lesson in larceny that I remember.
My mom and I were shopping at an Acme Food market. They did not call them Supermarkets then. I drooled when she ordered one pound of sliced roast beef. My eyes widened when she took it from our cart and slipped it into her purse. I was nervous at checkout, she was calm. At home she told me that I must never tell anyone, and then we had roast beef sandwiches that tasted so very sweet.
I suppose that people who live hand to mouth respect acts of larceny. I suppose that perhaps one needs to teach a son how it is to live in the world into which he was born. But larceny has a longer shelf life. There is a thrill that comes with larceny that survives the act of even the need.
My dad did teach me that hustling was a form of larceny, and because of that there needed to be elements of secrecy. It was sort of like a magician’s code. What was important was that you never let the other person know that you were committing the larceny of hustling on them.
It wasn’t where I found my first sense of solitude, but it was an addition. I enjoyed the advantage of hustling. Sometimes I knew that I was better at whatever the game was and just elongated things in order to maximize profit. It was a lesson from my dad. Larceny required patience and intuition.
It is akin to creative expression. There always seems to be a bit of larceny in people who have decided to live artistic lives. I’m not sure what that relationship is, but I know it is there.
After working as a pin boy and as a stock-boy at an old style, corner candy and soda fountain shop, my mom got me a job where she was working. I was a stock boy for Ripley Clothes. They were at one time a large chain that included Howard Clothes and on the west coast, Newman Brothers Clothes. My mom had become a credit manager, and the boss liked that I got my mom to work some mornings and home every evening. So when I turned fourteen, he gave me a job. He taught me how to fold pants and how to box a newly purchased suit.
My mom taught me those threads of larceny. Back then, layaways were common. Customers would place a deposit that reserved pieces of clothing, but sometimes those customers never came back. The deposits just sat on the books and the clothing just sat on storage racks. If the customer returned, the deposit would be refunded and the clothing returned to the active inventory of the store. It was an easy scam. It just required the cooperation of the stock-boy and the person who worked the register.
The return of the deposit leavers was fictionalized and we pocketed the money. In return, the store got more active inventory. It was really almost an acceptable scam and no one took much notice unless a customer actually did return and question what had become of the layaway. This was rare but often tense. I fell back on what my dad taught me about never letting your mark know that it had been manipulated. Money was returned.
We never got caught but I think people knew. It was then that I learned that larceny can be part of an unspoken agreement between all those involved. The exception would be the customer whose deposit was absconded with. But that is not an essential priority. If the customer came back and demanded, that person was reimbursed. It made choosing the customers wisely an essential component. My mom was in charge of that.
It’s a strange feeling to be the victim of a form of larceny. There was this kid named Dennis. Smallish, blonde, tough as nails kid who kept everyone and everything at a distance. We used to ride around at night. My first car was this black and silver ’57 Chevy. It was a hot car. Dennis wanted to drive and I wanted to be accepted by these new kids. He was a leader and so I always said yes. We would ride and talk and he would do some crazy things with the car. But invariably he would drop himself off at his house with about 1/8th of a tank of gas left. I noticed it but didn’t mention it because I wanted the acceptance.
I think that happens to a lot of victims of larceny. They are looking for something else and accept the larceny as part of the bargain that they are seeking. Maybe that says more about the broader nature of certain kinds of interactions, pseudo relationships, than it says about larceny. However, larceny is an element recognized by most if not all.
When I was seventeen I was sent one of the new BankAmerica credit cards. That day I went and bought my first stereo. Of course I never paid the bill. I told them that I was just seventeen and not responsible. My exploit was not met with approval; it was more a tacit acceptance. I took it and played my stereo. Larceny comes in a variety of patterns.
When we left Newark, my mom bought this two family house in Glen Ridge. It was on a one block, one way street that also housed the Fire Department, Police Department and a one man, old school A&P. We knew that the A&P clerk made a salary and that the company was looking to shut operations like this one down. We also knew that his cake deliveries came at night and were left in front of the only door.
My mom would send me out to steal for the thrill of it. The police department was two doors away. It required stealth and confidence. It required knowing when it was not the right time. Sometimes, I would come back empty handed and say, “Too many people around.” But when I came home with the spoils of our larceny, everything seemed much sweeter.
By the time that I moved out on my own, larceny was woven into me. If I saw an advantage to be had and it was not directly at the expense of another person, I would take it. Sometime I took it even when it was at the expense of someone else. I’d like to tell myself that only some of that was conscious but how unconscious are you allowed to be while perpetrating larceny?
I worked for this finance company and then I didn’t and then I was given an offer to commit larceny with them. I had to become a licensed insurance agent. Every loan required life and health insurance. The cap on the amount was $1,000. The net was $944 because of the need for insurance.
Now the company did not really need an agent, but it did not affect the cost and so the company was allowed to have one. It was a corporate wink with larceny. It never drew suspicion. I was offered the “job” as long as I would become an agent and kick back 50% to the company. It basically netted me a wage on which I could scratch out a living while I finished college.
I passed the test within a week. I received regular payments and my agent’s number was applied to multiple accounts that I never saw or really knew existed. If there was a claim, I was not involved. The claimant dealt directly with the insurance company. It was the easiest money that I’d ever made and then it came crashing down.
The guy who ran the company started making fraudulent loans. My number was still attached to each one and although I did not think about it at the time, legal responsibilities applied. I was, of course, immediately fired from a job where I had never spent one day. I managed to avoid further legal entanglements, but I learned that larceny requires husbandry. It can’t really just be left alone.
I’m still uncertain of the connection between larceny and creativity. There is a certain sleight of hand to creativity. Perhaps it is the uncertain direction of a melody, or an odd blending of color and light, or an unexpected image.
What gets apprehended is attention. The relationship is liquid. What is given and taken is uncertain and temporary. Perhaps that is part of the larceny of true magic.
Does a trickster engage in larceny? Does a writer, a musician, or an artist, or any combination of those, engage in larceny? Does that mean that there may be a hierarchy to larceny running from base to fine?
Larceny is deemed crooked. It is considered ill-formed, unless it is practiced on the grandest stage. Even then the solitude of larceny continues to exist. Creative people are sometimes like a congregation of larcenists. Maybe larceny is just not the right word. Maybe I have expanded the definition beyond its intent and lost clarity.
It seems clear to me that larceny is not of itself a negative thing requiring a positive balance. It may be have both embedded in it.
Dan Aykroyd said, “People love gentle larceny.” I think that he is right.
One of my early heroes was John Kenneth Galbraith. I was so young that I think it had something to do with Kenneth being part of his name. In my mind, I felt closer to him. He wrote, “The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud.”
Perhaps fraud is too strong. Perhaps we all need to understand the larcenies upon which we have constructed our foundations.

Touching Lives
I think that touching another person’s life comes with responsibility but I am not sure how far it extends. As a teacher, you agree that you are going to touch the lives of others. Does a teacher have responsibility for the effects of their touches?
Suppose I taught someone that despised the very core of the principles for which I stood? I became just a transmitter of technique. I became a person who showed you what worked, nothing more. I had put my skills on the market and thereby given up claim to what became of them.
This is a truth for teachers everywhere: that is what happens when your skills are on the marketplace. Maybe it is always what happens. Maybe the teacher has no responsibility for the lessons taught. In quiet moments of reflection, do teachers believe that?
I taught so many young people. Does each come with a responsibility? Even the ones that I cannot remember? Maybe especially those.
I have made touching lives my faith, but not my religion. I feel the tendrils of my spirit reach out to those that I have touched. And I am not sure what to do with that information either. The people in my life might tell you that I gave my best to my students and some may even say that they resent not having more of me. I just know that I was about touching lives.
One way to learn is to look at those who have touched my life. To what extent do I hold them responsible for who I am and have been? The pat answer is to say that we are all responsible for our own lives.
As a somewhat ironic aside, my teacher Allen once read in a class the following: “There comes a time in a man’s life when he is responsible for even the look on his face.” My memory says that he attributed it to Abraham Lincoln. That does not seem to be the case. I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent trying to find the context and author of this line. Does my teacher share responsibility with my memory for this unanswered question?
My life has been touched by so many. Some were knowledgeable of the touches, some were unconscious and some just did not care about the effects of their influence. Some tell themselves that they just do not remember. We tend to remember that which is important to us. We tend to rework our memories, but they seem to sprout from the seeds of having been touched.
A difficult lesson is to learn that the touch of kindness must be its own reward. We tend to want something back, but this need often leads to disappointment. My mom was a generous woman but she needed to feel the gratitude of others for what she had to give. She gave gratitude readily and was severely challenged to understand why others did not.
The converse of that is when the recipient of touch needs to express gratitude and the giver is not comfortable with the acceptance of it. Leonard Cohen writes “I couldn’t feel so I learned to touch.” When does touch cross over into use? I think that use may need to be conscious.
It is not unlike when a tactic becomes a manipulation. Tossing a question in a class and then waiting is a tactic. Steering a student to where you have decided that you want to go is a manipulation. Use and manipulations are words that come, in this context, with baggage. There must not always be negativity attached to the baggage, but there is responsibility. Responsibility often feels like baggage.
Being touched by someone else’s life is not always a positive experience. The exchange of touch usually requires a degree of faith and sometimes faith is broken, sometimes faith never existed. Sometimes what was created was the illusion of faith.
Sometimes we are touched by a leader or an author or even a celebrity, but are these vicarious touches real? Do they come with any responsibility on the part of the participants?
Sometimes we are blind to circumstances but we touch anyway. I have made mistakes in touching, but I refuse to just lay them aside. Perhaps that is hubris, or maybe a blending of religious code that stretches across three related faiths. I am responsible for those I have touched.
Touching someone’s life is sometimes an unwelcome gesture. I knew this man named David. I was in college and he was corporate in a family business of financiers. I needed a place to work. My girlfriend worked there. He was married with a child but he and my girlfriend had been lovers.
The dynamics of that example of touching lives was complex and profound and stupid and ultimately destructive. For my part, I planted seeds of rebellion. It was a finance company and I was hired to talk money out of people who had fallen arears. I was good at it. I had done it before.
My girlfriend worked the desk and payments and David managed the company that was owned by his family. I was still able to muster my skills of persuasion with style in a way that extracting payments from delinquent accounts gave me a sense of satisfaction. I could touch them with my language. My goal was for them to send payments. Most of them did, but there were some who couldn’t.
Her name was Carrie. She was an older woman whose husband had procured a one thousand dollar loan and then died. Carrie never saw the money. She was struggling to raise children on her own. But I used my ability to touch lives and got into her head. She took my calls. She would send five dollars every other month while the interest had more than topped out at the $1700 limit then limited by law. The five dollars would do absolutely nothing towards reducing the debt.
One afternoon I refused to call her. I told David that I just wanted him to lose the account. He refused and directed me to call. I refused and was fired.
I knew that I had touched Carrie’s life and David’s life in ways that were selfish. I was always just trying to get what I wanted. The truth is that it may always be that way and the trick is refining what it is that you want.
It is about scales I suppose but you have to be able to read them. Have you helped more than you hurt? Do you truly know when you have helped or hurt?
I do not pray in the conventional sense, but I pray for the lives that I have touched. My prayers are simple and honest. They come out in the form of hopes. For a person like myself, have hopes replaced prayer?
Have I learned about the nature of touching lives? Was it totally silly to have tried to touch them all? Maybe at best it was naïve. Touch must be selective. Touch is as much a responsibility as it is a gift.
Early on my lovers wanted me to write about them. Later, that changed and they begged me to stop. Other people’s vision is often not flattering. And the early requests were for flattery and confirmation of feelings expressed in intimate times. Intimacy is a key component of touching lives. Intimacy walks a winding path. Is it only strange to me that the sung word “lives” often sounds like “lies” to me? Sometimes a listen again and again, wondering if it is lives of lies that are touching me. Sometimes the distinction between them blurs. Lives and lies both have a way of accomplishing that.
I touch in part because I am touched. We are all touched by each other’s lives and actions and in my silent moments I pray that we have been touched by each other’s words.

The word gesture dates back to the 15th century, but its origins are much deeper. An early experience with the concept was to read that a raised, open hand demonstrated that it carried no weapons. The concept of gestures is complex in meaning and simple in execution. They can be casual, intimate, meaningful, false, studied, and sometimes missed.
Successful gesture requires recognition. They are acts of communication. I am not sure if they can be solitary. Can you make a gesture to yourself? People often say that they are treating themselves or punishing themselves. Perhaps suicide is the ultimate internal gesture, but perhaps it too is a gesture to others.
Recognition is subjective. One message can be sent and another received. Communication of gesture is a risky process.
Do people reflect upon the gestures that they have made in their lives? Perhaps that is only true if they reflect, but I believe that everyone lives, in part, through memory and memories. I wonder which gestures have been most important in my life.
Sometimes I need to be told that I have made a gesture or that one has been made to me. Sometimes it isn’t important that I know because the gesture has already been communicated. I’m not good at a study of my own gestures. I sometimes miss those that have been made towards me.
In meetings, I used to take off my glasses and clean them before responding. It is a studied gesture that felt right at the time. When I am told that it is studied, I was genuinely surprised. I shouldn’t be. Can a gesture be studied if it is unconscious or only partially conscious? Upon reflection I think that cleaning my glasses was a gesture that communicated that I wished to be clear. Maybe I was just buying time.
I had that habit of rolling a piece of chalk between my hands and listening to the way that it clicked against my rings. It was a strategic, classroom pause while I let a question sink in. The chalk rolling was instinctive. Perhaps there is such a thing as an instinctive gesture that is different from covering your head if you are about to be hit; different from instinctive bodily response.
Animals are far more adroit at communicating through gesture. In a dispute between many mammals, a show of surrender is enough. But show your neck to a shark and it is more an invitation than a withdrawal. Run from a predator and you will be ended. If one stands one’s ground in these circumstances, survival is more likely. Fight or flight is hardwired into us all and is best expressed through gesture.
Unconscious gestures seem to be an internal strategy. They may be a more comprehensive expression of who a person is. A more encompassing view of the totality of a human being may be their gestures. Maybe the aphorism “actions speak louder than words” is meant to include gestures. Is there a hierarchy to them? It seems like there would be, but I am not sure what it is. I am not at all sure that studied gestures rise above the gravity of unconscious gestures.
Is there a significant difference between a gesture and a habit? Does the ritualistic nature of a habit make it something less?
Each morning, I begin my day by giving my dog Stella her meds and then her breakfast after letting her out after the long night’s wait. I don’t talk much at all, but I touch her. Then I water the plants and I do talk to them as I check the dryness of their soil and the health of their leaves. I believe that plants sense these acts of husbandry as gestures of good feeling, gestures of attention.
After that I do mouth care, water-pic, floss and brushing. This is definitely a habit. I grab my habitual bottle of water and sit at my computer to view, in the same pattern, the websites into which I daily check. I know that what I do with Stella and with the plants is a conscious gesture and I believe that the other stuff is habit.
Some gestures result in a wellspring of emotion. When a person reaches out for another’s hand and that hand is accepted, a myriad of possibilities blossom. When, after cutting you off and hearing your complaining honk, the driver in the car in front of you reaches out the window and raises only a middle finger, there is a rush of anger caused by insult. Each are gestures of communication and each transmit without the need for words. They are both significant gestures.
Declining an invitation without significant cause is also a gesture. Saying no because a member of your family is ill and needs care is far different from saying, “No, I’m just not feeling the need.” The result is not the same. Invitation comes with a certain sense of responsibility.
People have developed a language of gesture that is both complex and meaningful. Asking for a favor and having it declined without real, mitigating circumstances is a profound rejection. A meaningful offer of unsolicited help is different. Accepted, it creates a new kind of bond. Rejection creates a wall and sets boundaries that may have not before been fully realized.
Gestures follow us. They define us on multiple levels. They are intrinsic to who we are and may become. They also help to define who we aren’t and will not become.
Repeated gestures are a bit more like habits. It is harder to discover their significance. There is an expectation that reduces the significance of the gesture. Perhaps significant gestures require an element of the unexpected, of surprise.
Is it the sometimes vague nature of gestures that provides them with multiple meanings? Sometimes it seems so very clear, one gets flipped the bird. Sometimes they are served on a menu of complexity.
A salute is a profound gesture. So is a smile. The click on the other end of the phone is a culminating gesture. Now, defriending a person on social media has joined that group.
We look for and expect certain gestures from people in public life. When they come, we often feel bonded or alienated. Gestures can be polarizing.
We easily title something a gesture without being sure what it means. History does not seem to be capable of making gestures, they are acts of the living.
I think that I’m writing this to learn more about the nature of gestures. Perhaps it is my gesture to a form of communication that I sometimes struggle to master. I hope that it engenders greater questions or understanding for those who read it. It is my gesture.