USED TO BE ME
USED TO BE ME
By John Tuft
One of the enduring mysteries of human existence is the self. We walk around the face of the earth considering ourselves to be separate. Blame it on our brains. That weird lump of something sitting on top of our bodies. That lump that makes us feel like we are bigger than we are or smaller than we are. That inventor of emotions and language and intellect. That lump that tries to convince that it enters the world as tabula rasa but needs to learn trust from day one on a tabula that knows it needs to learn trust. And if it doesn’t learn, it is broken. Essentially beyond repair. What a lump! Can’t live with it, without it can’t live.
The lump that sits on top of my body drives me to invent stories. The lump inside my skull kept going when my heart stopped beating during a full lump seizure, as though it was laughing at me, taunting me with a dream of being pain free. Recently my literary agent asked me to write an About the Author section for my publisher’s proposal. It has to be written in the third person, so I was writing about this Tuft character who runs around inside the lump atop my body. What has he written before, what influences his writing, what are his accomplishments, how his pain shapes his life and his stories. Try it sometime. I dare you. Describe yourself and your life as a disinterested observer. Will any of it be talking about what used to be me?
I realize that usually I put a story in this space that you graciously grant to me. But sometimes I need to think out loud. I’ve come to believe that the imagination that runs around inside my lump occurs in the spaces between the synapses, kind of like the dark matter of space. I’ve learned that when I am writing a novel the characters that inhabit my imagination take over the story as though it were their own. Which in its own peculiar way it is; it is their story. The lump that turns us into who we are is a wonderfully weird place. Living with stroke and dementia-stricken folks for two years drove home the point to me. Their insistence to me that “I used to be me” is something I cannot forget. The memories tucked into a corner of my lump of those times and those fellow perishables help to keep me from taking anything about life for granted.
As I watch the children of my children take on the consequences of their genetic disposition through their luck of the draw of parents, and as I look for the glimmers of mine in them, I too am wondering about how I used to be me. You know how each New Year’s Day we have that silly thought that everything is beginning again, that the whole world is starting over again when clearly that is never going to happen? That clearly is the fate of my wonderings about how I used to be me. No, this is it. This is me. Lump on top and all. Child of my parents, sibling of a horde, asker of questions, little shy boy fears and failings, wizard with the magic of words. Every word comes from what I used to be and whom I aspire to become.
For the umpteenth time, I am in physical therapy. The lump inside my skull doesn’t like to lose. That’s my only explanation. The physique that I used to have is no longer stored in my lump. The only thing I have resembling that is the near-death occurrence of walking through the home of my childhood in my favorite jacket and free of pain. My memory has its share of hallucinations.
As I write these words, Casper, my 114 pounds of puppy dog watches over me with great patience. If I am late in getting to my writing place each day, he comes back to the area where I write and does the dog version of tapping his feet in impatience. He is as much my minder as I am his. Beside me are the four books that I have written that are now in print. Inside my computer abide two more and a third is in the birthing process. If you like them, thank you. If you don’t, talk to Casper. How many more reside inside the lump atop my body, I really don’t know. Maybe the ones in print used to be me. What you do with them is entirely out of my hands.
It is a late summer Sunday morning. The Pittsburgh Pirates are doing better than expected. If you don’t know who Paul Skenes is, he is pitching today. The Steelers are in training camp. If you do not understand the significance of these two items, I don’t know what to tell you. In three months, I celebrate me and my lump being on this earth for seven decades. The people who brought me into this world are long gone. The people whom I brought into this world have their doubts about this whole enterprise and what we have foisted upon them. Maybe, just maybe, I never used to be me. You are the judge of that. Please be kind…
And, as always, words are magic and writers are wizards.
