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If my mom and dad were numbers, they would be rational, my sister and I integers (she positive and I negative).
Numbers. Counting. The birth of representational value, of measurables, of an application used to explain our world.
I count and with each word etch a mark in the ether. This rhythmic repetitive chant; one to one correspondence helps me in its tangibility.
At times I count to ten, other times necessitate travelling farther afield.
As a child, I would shut my eyes tightly and count in the back seat of our old Pontiac Lemans when passing through this one tunnel, on our way to visit friends of the family.
This concrete tube that, each time, swallowed us up, procured in me such a strong sense of claustrophobia and thus imminent danger, augmented by the discomforting cast of its jaundice yellow light, that even upon arrival at destination, Mrs.Belevedere’s “world renowned” homemade cheesecake couldn’t eliminate the feeling of dread washing over me.
Years later, in the middle of the night, soaked in sweat, sheets damp and tangled, too scared to close my eyes for fear of never waking up, I stared into the darkness and counted, whilst rocking to and fro; forcing myself into a trance like state of evenness steadiness. One breath one number, one breath one number…
Waiting for news of the results I counted, watching him leave for good I counted, so angry that I wanted to kill her I counted. And in so doing, relate to it all.
This modus operandi is readily available, solid and true and can affect physical discomfort as well as mental and emotional chaos due to its very nature of order and measure.
One of the best inventions ever, numbers permeate our world and make sense of it both in highly complex and simple pure truths.
And so I continue to count; an element of this magical, extraordinary, boundless correlation.
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