JunkDror

“Pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Ecclesiastes 4:10

Those kind and gracious enough to have read a handful of my musings may have noticed the only thing I avert more than biblical references is writing in the “I’s,” “me’s,” and “my’s.” Allergic to ostentation and peeved by pedantics, I micromanage the first-person point of view because its misuse quickly turns an authorial voice into a pseudo-omniscient fuss–an audacious certainty that I have all that much to say. It is subjective, often subversive, always strident, and streets apart from JunkDror’s covenant with inclusivity. But there are times in a girl’s life when guilt overcomes pride, and accountability must follow.

Living independently–almost selfishly–I am efficient, proud, and prolific in my survival, which bears me fruit in the shape of productivity and resilience. It is exhilarating to carry myself with grit, and to do it so well, the self-aggrandizing jokes write themselves. Unveilingly, however, I am simple and self-effacing in my emotional alms because giving your affections is precarious and risky in a state of habitual self-preservation. It is to be unguarded and disarmed, reliant and abiding, even inconvenienced and embarrassed. As a self-proclaimed “autonomous” person in an age of accessible reclusivity, it teeters the system of utility that’s regulated me across a lifetime. 

Though expeditioning through life’s labyrinth reveals that no calloused hands nor supple mind feeds a hungry heart. Because when dawn goes down to day and my fruitful yield rots, I start to look at everyone as if I love them, and perhaps I do. I love a mother kissing the wound on her child’s knee, a mature pair swinging hands through the street, and a stranger who spews an innocent compliment your way. And I love the friend who lies on my bed to share a laugh, the neighbor who asks for some desperately needed sugar, and the kind peer who offers a taste of their lunch. 

My routine solitude, however progressive, makes me feel ashamed for awakening the eye that notices its opposite. I am sunk with an intense Edenic grief over the thought of unlearning self-partnered behaviors, as the act of loving and being loved is inherently not an independent activity. Suddenly, I am filled with a puncturing culpability of the village I’ve kept out of reach. Worse is realizing they are alive and well, patiently waiting for me to speak. For the moment in which I fall to my knees, an angel in kin will arrive to help me up and mend the maim. To not return the labor is a sin of disregard, and holistic virtue is found in being unguarded and disarmed, reliant and abiding, even inconvenienced and embarrassed. 

While the servitude of togetherness is a psalm I’ve spiritually always known, it surfaces in a period of life when no amount of self-love rids me of my need for community and companionship. Presently, I humanly attempt to become a woman of “I do’s” and “I will’s” in speech and in between the words on a page. Through submissive benevolence and restorative touch, merciful aid and altruistic surrender, I am slowly personifying a once-ghostly heart and rooting a gentleness only divinity shares. 

In favor of literary edging and diplomatic ambiguity, I’ll continue to evade the “I’s,” “me’s,” and “my’s.” But I am happy to proclaim my undying love for the falling friend or refusing recluse, because if I know a single thing, it is the rewards of a village and the tenderness of duty.

Meet the Village

And others not pictured but know who they are… xx

JunkYard

a. If you’ve scrolled this far, I thank you for absorbing April’s word vomit–a style of writing I don’t particularly like, but a consequence of falling behind on my publishing schedule.

b. I’ve found a lot of inspiration from John Steinbeck this month for his use of repetition and thematic exploration of self vs. obligation.

c. How can I be thousands of miles away from my loved ones and feel like I never left home?

d. Introducing “JunkYard:” Aimless post-script thoughts and potentially contextual anecdotes to themes discussed in the text.