I’ve had teachers say, “reflect on it in writing.” I’ve written similar things on papers my students turn in to me. Sometimes I think I know what it means, that somehow seeing my thoughts on paper—seeing my thoughts on paper (that’s not really what it is)—is a reflection. That I am somehow looking at myself as my thoughts appear on paper. But once they are on paper, they aren’t really my thoughts. They are words, which are like thoughts, but not perfectly.
I cannot really translate my thoughts well. They are, shall we say, “multimedia.” There are songs and layers and images and ticking noises and slideshows and fragmented videos and people that meld together and even dancing midgets and talking monkeys sometimes. Sometimes they leak and ooze and freeze and explode or rot. Sometimes they simply disappear. Sometimes they are in Spanish. No, these “thoughts” on paper are not really my thoughts. I am far more scattered. Asi es la vida.
And much of the time, this paper is not even paper. If I could feed leaves through my printer without totally fucking it up, I would put my thoughts on leaves, my non-thoughts on leaves or maybe rocks. Then my thoughts could literally blow away in the wind, or I could throw one in a lake and let it sink to the bottom, or perhaps even more violent things. But somehow I think real thoughts are more buoyant. They keep coming up—or at least I think they are coming up, surfacing—like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot or Dracula. They exist and they don’t and nobody can prove otherwise.
So maybe this is an attempt to prove my existence. This reflection proves my existence? It is far too organized, and I didn’t even get to select the font.
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