Treehouse

I’m not going to die, ever. And even if I did for some unfathomable reason, it would be absolutely impossible for it to happen anytime soon. The same goes for anyone I’ve ever met.

I am happiest in life when I am out in nature, at one with the earth. Certainly not when I am eating oversized sandwiches. That would disappoint anyone who ever viewed me highly.

In the infinities of time and space, I’m significant. I’m sure someone saved my post on an internet forum two months ago and returns to it in their darkest moments of doubt.

The reality that most of my thoughts have already been explored by countless other people is a good enough reason to procrastinate writing.

I found the fountain of youth. It tastes like wet peaches and involves ignoring the calendar.

Billy. Never has there been a more innocent and likable character undone by an antagonist’s bullying and one fatal flaw: his emotional stutter. Even teenage readers I’ve taught have felt sorry for him, and that’s saying a lot.

Claggart. Evil and jealous and spiteful and vain and morally bankrupt and conflicted and multi-dimensional. But mostly evil, driven nearly mad by Billy’s goodness and attractiveness, both things he can never have.

Melville’s tangents. If you are familiar with Moby Dick, you know these well. In Billy Budd, Sailor, we get an education in mutiny on British ships, the machinery and politics of war (including the contradiction of placing chaplains on warships), naval values, the beauty of old ships, Admiral Nelson’s victories at Trafalgar and in the Nile, and metaphorical ruminations about sanity and insanity using rainbows.

Melville’s long, lovely sentences. Sentences like this, at the moment of Billy’s demise: “At the same moment it chanced that the vapory fleece hanging low in the East was shot through with a soft glory as of the fleece of the Lamb of God seen in mystical vision, and simultaneously therewith, watched by the wedged mass of upturned faces, Billy ascended; and ascending, took the full rose of the dawn.” Sigh.

The phrase “the handsome sailor,” which refers to a person who is ethical, virtuous, upright, beautiful, strong, full of good humor, and adored by others around him. It is rare to find one of these people in the world and, if I do, I always think of this phrase.

Haptodysphoria  (noun) an unpleasant sensation felt by some people in response to certain tactile sensations. When you rub velvet the wrong way. Chalk on your fingers. When you accidentally brush against gum on the underside of a table.

Susurrous  (adjective) whispering, murmuring. When I was a child my parents had a friend that always liked to lean in and whisper jokes to me, often while chewing on his food, which was usually something like hummus or pesto. I can’t help but think of that whenever I say this word: that chilling feeling of someone uttering soft, disgusting sounds into your ear.

Oubliette  (noun) a secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling. A word that sounds like it could be something cute but is actually the creepiest thing imaginable.

Prosopagnosia  (noun) an inability to recognize familiar faces, often referred to as ‘face blindness.’ I kid you not, I think I suffer from this. It can be somewhat frustrating, very awkward.

Elsewhere  (adverb) in, at, or to some other place or other places. I like the sound of faraway places but the distance between any of us is most often heartbreaking.