Little-Big Me

Well, August has arrived and with it comes the fruition or denial of my promise. I told myself repeatedly during my summer sabbatical from writing that once August came around I would get back at it, attacking what I claim as one of my “passions” with gusto worthy of such distinction. So here we go into the adventure once more. Let us embark on Season II of Sundays in the Dark—which, interestingly enough, is commencing on a very bright Thursday afternoon: I’ll be frank, I have plans Sunday evening . . . deal with it.

Let me begin our re-acquaintance—and if you want to deem it a ‘courtship’ all the better—with a summary of myself on this day. I have grown. If you haven’t seen me in a given amount of time (that is all of you . . . try to keep up) I have really shot up and out. I took some supplements I found in a dank Men’s Room at a Michigan service station named “Jess’s”, and I’ll tell you, it has been an intense war waged between me and my physical boundaries. The two most common words I have heard uttered in my direction are “Immense” and “Gerth”. And I concur.

It is strange being gargantuan. Here I am, plunged into a world of Lilliputians, and after years of being ‘sleek’ and ‘slender’ I find myself much like a de-whiskered feline. Have you ever cut the whiskers from a cat’s face? You see, the purpose of the whiskers is to allow the cat foreknowledge of whether or not the rest of it will fit through a given space. Without the facial measurers the furball will wedge itself into all manner of unmanageable positions the likes of which only butter and determination serve as liberators. And now this rapid transition has fated me thusly: wedged in doorways, lodged between bookshelves at the library, and jam-packed into my stadium seat at the local theater.

And despite my newly found gravitational fortitude my very mindset is quite moveable and, at present, absolutely shaken. As a sprite, I was prone to dash from trouble, and sneer from a safe distance. Now, when I try to dart, I topple. I am forced to stand tall—easily enough managed physically—and fight—a much more difficult feat. My only “move” is jiggling, ineffective at best. Even my towering height is a disadvantage as you little folk zip about—a memory now so fond of days long forgotten—relentlessly striking areas where I have no arms to protect. What good is cowering and covering my face in this realm of merciless body shots?

This chronic bigness has shrunk me. I am isolated and perplexed, wondering and wandering. I hope to regain my old form, the mannerisms, deftness, and accompanying spirit, but I fear the comfort within my own self is gone; a stranger who struck off into the void and got lost, leaving only memories in the form of breadcrumbs and miniature footprints.

I miss the ease of that persona. His life was simple, an unknowing existence of selfish convenience: what a way to go. But this little-big me is frightful and uncertain, fumbling and clumsy, yet chock-full of potential and adventure and the chance for the self within to catch-up with the expansive body. Maybe the gerth life truly is the life for me . . . God knows.