On My Need for Stories and Burning Time Cards

Consistent with my “Touch and Go Joni” moniker, I have printed my resignation letter and am set to file it on Friday. I’m afraid I’m too much of a gypsy to stay in one place for too long. I have to keep moving. But that’s an oversimplification.

There has always been something about my job that does not feel real. Maybe because since graduation, this is the first time that I find myself in an office environment, punching my times in and out. As the measure of my existence in the company, they count how many hours I stay in the office, regardless of the amount of work I’m doing. I have been reduced to an eight-hour entity, occasionally having to put in an additional couple, at times four, hours in a day lest I disappear from earth and never come back.

But I had grown tired of the sheer mathematicality of the whole thing. The words wish to spring forth from me. I no longer just want to have to write “main entrance,” “granite,” “foresta green” and “polished” all in a straight line, from one language to another. Is there a candy store right outside the main entrance? I would want to see the little girl peering into the display window, her face pressed close to the glass, mesmerized by the greenredyellowpinkbrown in a large jar in the corner. She would go home only after her eyes have had their fill of the colors of the candies, her mind have imagined the sweet slightly rough texture of the round objects in her mouth. 

I thought working with words, in two languages no less, would make me happy even for just a few months. But I realized before long that I needed to have them in my hands, shaping them into a reality that I can see in my head before my soul can be truly satisfied. I need the stories. And that’s how I know I’m cursed.

The utter frustration of having red granite for the pavement and not see a young boy of about fourteen sitting on it so he could have fifteen minutes all to himself before he goes home to a crowded house filled with siblings and parents forever in shouting matches has reached its limit. Perhaps he thinks about the new girl in school as he hugs his knees closer to his body. How she had looked at him and shyly smiled across the classroom that afternoon. Or perhaps he’s looking at the stars and wondering about the light years that it takes before the light reaches us.

I need the stories. I will have to look for them elsewhere. In the meantime, I wish I could burn that time card.