Alchemizing, Skill Gaps

Have you seen those fish elevators?

A brief refresher: when we build dams, there’s this load of fish that need to get around them. Predators know this and lurk in the depths, waiting to snatch them up.

So we built fish elevators to surpass them.

The fish stop by the bottom of the dam, board the elevator, and get shot out into the water on the other side.

I’ve been relating heavily to those fish.

I’m back out to open waters, I guess you could say- but holy shit, the fish whiplash.

I will stop using this metaphor now.

The past couple of months have been insane. It felt like a mirror of college graduation, honestly. 

There is so much beauty in befriending people from different countries. 

Learning the slang, eating Scotch eggs. Cursing in Afrikaans. 

But naturally, people move. So you spend as much time with them as you can.

And they graduate to different countries.

And you are still in Boston.

Fish out of the elevator.

I used the metaphor again.

I decided to forfeit my blog, my journaling- honestly, most of my free time- in the name of being present with people I care about.

I don’t regret it. But I’m also not sure about how to exist as Amanda Mona without those avenues. 

I’ve told myself that writing is my way of distilling- alchemizing all of these people and places and events, and analyzing them. I like to understand what they mean to me. I want to know their significance. I want to make sure that I remember.

I feel like I’m looking at this mountain of material from the past two months, and I don’t even know where to start. 

Well here I am, starting.

I have played more trivia in this stint of time than I ever have in my life. I have never been so humbled as I was while playing with two people who went to Oxford, and one who has been to more countries than I can count.

But I knew a niche video game from the 1980s.

I struggle to put this one into words without sounding like I’m being pretentious or looking for some kind of reassurance. So don’t take it like that:

I watch my friends speak about these beautiful concepts that they have the brains to grasp. Physics, world history, varying authors- and I feel so blessed to be included in the dialogue. To keep up (to an extent) with what they’re saying, and to be seen as a worthy enough conversationalist that they don’t question whether or not I understand. 

But then it comes to my moment to respond. And it just feels like I don’t have the tools to do it. I don’t know the framework.

But then trivia cuts to the “Name The Song” portion and suddenly I’m Socrates.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about my “skill gaps.”

They’re the spaces between where I want to be and where I am, specifically regarding capability.

I love to read poetry. I love to read philosophical theory.

And I don’t know if I have anything profound enough worth adding.

I want to add. 

I really want to add.

And maybe I’m nervous that when the world is alchemized by whoever comes along eventually, I will be the bystander who never said anything worthy of being written down. 

Guys, I really wanted to make this a lighthearted “welcome back, it’s been awhile” blog post about dams and fish and I went and got existential again.

Anyways, I miss my friends. I love them a lot.

And I’m excited to be writing again. More to come soon.