My Soul Is Full of Squiggles

Imagine only being able to use 26 symbols to communicate the entirety of yourself. Your

every need, desire, fear, and wonderful memory. Only 26 little symbols to portray every moment

of your life from birth until death, every piece of yourself that anyone else can see, in just 26

silly little symbols. The absurdity of this proposal isn’t any less so just because it’s real. Right

now, these 26 silly little lines on paper are forcing you to think about precisely what I, the

author, want you, my reader, to consider. All you're doing is looking at a sequence of little lines

on paper; yet here we are, with a whole world of ideas presented by squiggles.

The dog is kind and big and brown, he has droopy eyes and floppy ears. Do you see

him? I didn't show you anything but black lines on white paper, but you see him, don’t you?

Her heart didn’t know how to go on. You understand her now, don’t you?

I want to be a writer, but I’m not sure I have any stories to tell, just ideas and a bit of a

broken heart. Now you see me. Now you know me. Even if we’ve never met, and never do meet,

you’ll always know this part of me.

That’s the power of language. I don’t need a picture or a screen or a stage to show you

other’s ideas, other’s hearts and minds and universes, all I need are a few lines scratched into the

old processed piece of a tree. There’s an absurdity to the concept of communication. Through a

few squiggles, or strings of sounds, or shapes on a canvas, or lights on a screen, you are

supposed to understand some aspect of my silly little soul. To love someone is to want to know

them. Love is to try to understand the squiggles of the soul.