MY SPACE, MY PLACE

In that small red building,
next to the big building, is my space.

Who am I, and where do I belong in the scheme of things?

What things?  Well, the world ...

I belong in America, state of New York, New York City, in a hundred-year-old brownstone, in the heart of the city.

 

I'm just a rectangle amid thousands-upon-thousands of others.

What do I do? I write and try to get people to read what I've written -- most of the people who are reading what I write are like me  -- specks -- located inside one of the rectangles or curved, or other shapes. (NYC's got the Guggenheim Museum, and other odd-shaped structures you note, if you're looking down at the city from high above.) 

A speck?  Gee, when I was a little girl, I certainly wasn't a speck. I was first name and last name, with parents' first and last names, and when the school's attendance taker called out my name I said "here." If I put my hand up, and waved, the teacher would pick me to answer the question, or I could ask a question that might affect everyone.

My size and importance changed. I wasn't a speck when I took my first dance classes, or when I went I got a job in New York to help pay for dance classes. I was not a speck when I danced -- I was the center.  The spotlight was on me. I was somebody. (No wonder show biz stardom -- singer, dancer, actor --  is such a big dream for kids.)

But now, as a writer, I'm aware of the fact that I am one among millions -- rectangle or odd shaped space that you can see looking down at the world --  a speck inside a rectangle -- a speck among specks, who works -- not just to emerge from being a non-entity, but because writing -- what I do now, sort of evolved  from all the things I have done as I've grown up.

Right now, I'm aware of my friends, who are writers, bopping themselves on the head like me, who are asking what I'm asking  -- what is my place. where is my place on earth?

Okay, I am a reacher, a person grabbing at recognition, trying to seize  more space, a better place. When I leave the earth, will I be missed? Things I said or did may be remembered -- words, even tone -- but no, time will pass and as it passes, the rectangle I occupied will be crowded with, golly, billions of specs.

Hey --
it
just
hit me --
we
specks
are
mankind
and womankind.

Be we specks or whatever, right now, my house and your house are the world and we own the world.

Hmm.

That's more  than space and a place.  I like that.