WHY I'M NOT WHERE YOU ARE
5/21/63
To my unborn child: I haven't always been silent, I used to talk
and talk and talk and talk, I couldn't keep my mouth shut, the silence overtook
me like a cancer, it was one of my first meals in America, I tried to tell the
waiter, "The way you just handed me that knife, that reminds me of—"
but I couldn't finish the sentence, her name wouldn't come, I tried again, it
wouldn't come, she was locked inside me, how strange, I thought, how
frustrating, how pathetic, how sad, I took a pen from my pocket and wrote
"Anna" on my napkin, it happened again two days later, and then again
the following day, she was the only thing I wanted to talk about, it kept
happening, when I didn't have a pen, I'd write "Anna" in the
air—backward and right to left—so that the person I was speaking with could
see, and when I was on the phone I'd dial the numbers—2, 6, 6, 2—so that the
person could hear what I couldn't, myself, say. "And" was the next
word I lost, probably because it was so close to her name, what a simple word
to say, what a profound word to lose, I had to say "ampersand," which
sounded ridiculous, but there it is, "I'd like a coffee ampersand
something sweet," nobody would choose to be like that. "Want"
was a word I lost early on, which is not to say that I stopped being able to
express the want, so instead I said "desire," "I desire two
rolls," I would tell the baker, but that wasn't quite right, the meaning
of my thoughts started to float away from me, like leaves that fall from a tree
into a river, I was the tree, the world was the river. I lost "come" one
afternoon with the dogs in the park, I lost "fine" as the barber
turned me around toward the mirror, I lost "shame"—the verb and the
noun in the same moment; it was a shame. I lost "carry," I lost the
things I carried—"daybook," "pencil," "pocket change,"
"wallet"—I even lost "loss." After a time, I had only a
handful of words left, if someone did something nice for me, I would tell him,
"The thing that comes before 'you're welcome,'" if I was hungry, I'd
point at my stomach and say, "I am the opposite of full," I'd lost
"yes," but I still had "no," so if someone asked me,
"Are you Thomas?" I would answer, "Not no," but then I lost
"no," I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of
my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say it hasn't made life
wonderful, it's made life possible, when I rub my hands against each other in
the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO, when
I clap my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of
YES and NO, I signify "book" by peeling open my clapped hands, every
book, for me, is the balance of YES and NO, even this one, my last one,
especially this one. Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every
day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as
quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything
changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the
world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the
cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so
painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great
place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought
myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
"I" was the last word I was able to speak aloud, which is a terrible
thing, but there it is, I would walk around the neighborhood saying, "I I
I I." "You want a cup of coffee, Thomas?" "I."
"And maybe something sweet?" "I." "How about this
weather?" "I." "You look upset. Is anything wrong?" I
wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from
the beginning, but instead I said, "I." I know I'm not alone in this
disease, you hear the old people in the street and some of them are moaning,
"Ay yay yay," but some of them are clinging to their last word,
"I," they're saying, because they're desperate, it's not a complaint
it's a prayer, and then I lost "I" and my silence was complete. I
started carrying blank books like this one around, which I would fill with all
the things I couldn't say, that's how it started, if I wanted two rolls of
bread from the baker, I would write "I want two rolls" on the next
blank page and show it to him, and if I needed help from someone, I'd write
"Help," and if something made me want to laugh, I'd write "Ha ha
ha!" and instead of singing in the shower I would write out the lyrics of
my favorite songs, the ink would turn the water blue or red or green, and the
music would run down my legs, at the end of each day I would take the book to
bed with me and read through the pages of my life.
Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan Safran Foer.
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