On the Renaming of Things

This weekend, your name shall be Gunther. On Monday, you can go back to being who you were before today. Because your name is Gunther, you are Swedish. And a graphic designer. And the lead guitarist in some terrible Emo band. Because you have been renamed, you require a new identity. Like all things. The past can be reinvented so easily.

Look at these:

They are called Kandinski weeds. They look like drawings in Russian children's literature. They grow in places where people have a large Russian literature collection inhabiting their bookshelves. They grow outside my home.

On friday, on the way to yoga at Runyon, the street smelled like lemongrass and Eucalyptus. Like it smelled in Bangkok that one time. Except I was never in Bankok. But I could easily have been.

When I was stopped at the grocery store by a woman who inquired about my necklace, I told her I had found it at a flea market. Where? she asked. In Zurich, I told her. It sounded like I had made it up, but it was true.

That man standing on the street corner is a writer. Look at his hands. His wife died a year ago. He is lonely, but he has a cat. He grew up in a tiny town in Wisconsin. He drinks his coffee black, and hasn't cried in two months.

Do I look like my story? Do you? My mother says after a while, your history starts to show up on your face, whether you like it or not. But I think your history inhabits your body, affects the way you move, talk, hunch over. What do my movements reveal? What secrets can be revealed through my hand gestures, in my eyes? In yours.

What does it matter, truths and untruths? Stories are stolen, invented, renamed.

A brown showbox, with a yellow and goldleaf interior. I call it knesset.