MULTITUDES | 1000 by Tyler + 1 image by Jesse

I have multitudes within me.

My grandmothers, both passed, who embodied hospitality and had world-class bullshit detectors. Who were short in stature, but otherwise immense in their ability to hold the world together in their respective ways. I miss their hard-won wisdom and sly senses of humor.

I have multitudes within me.

My grandfathers, one of whom still lives, one of whom passed when I was in high school, were (and are) thoughtful, willing to take a day to fix this or that, willing to find a solution to make others’ lives better. Tinkerers in the cosmos, in war, but wanting peace. They are the willing.

I have multitudes within me.

My father carries this tradition. There’s always a project. Something to work on, something to perfect. He does it with houses. I do it with myself. The impulse is the same. Make this house a home. Always be building, making improvements, figuring out the puzzle.

My mother is exceptional in her seeming ordinariness. She teaches (for a while longer), has her mother’s curiosity, thinks deeply and with feeling. She seeks understanding and wisdom and meaning. Beneath her gentle exterior is a depth of resolve and cold ferocity and warm justice. She might seem unassuming. Trust me, she is not.

I have multitudes within me.

I have my brother, a neuropsychologist and data scientist, dad to my niblings, late night deep talker, and the last person I’ve ever struck with my fist. This was years ago. I regret it still. We fought like brothers. Now we love like them. Seeing him so gentle with his kids, encouraging, supportive, guiding them to themselves.

I have my sister-in-law, also skilled in psychology and the human condition. Funny, wild, unconcerned with time. Does so much internal processing, I’d expect an actual appearance by extraterrestrial life to be met entirely nonplussed. Maybe an eye roll at the inconvenience.

I have my niblings, the results and, often, rebellion against, my brother and sister-in-law. They’re made of energy, feelings, joy, love, and insistence. And also sweetness and the ability, occasionally, to follow the wisdom of others.

I have multitudes within me.

I have my seemingly endless aunts and uncles and cousins, all in a variety of vocations. Scientist, teacher, IT person, principal, gardener, firefighter, artist, city planner, park ranger, salesperson, engineer, builder, stay at home mom, mechanic, writer, defense contractor, realtor. And those are only the ones I could think of rapidly off the top of my head. All with personalities and stories and experiences. All water flowing in the same braided stream.

I have multitudes within me.

And that’s only biological family.

I have my partner of thirteen years. She is a whirlwind, and executes nearly everything with maximum confidence. And not the foolish kind. The kind that considers consequences, that deals directly and straightforwardly, that knows which way the wind blows. She takes people at their word (listen, I’m still working on that one), with caution and fairness and knows when to make distance and when to close that distance again. She trips the light fantastic as often as she can and in as many ways she can. I can only dance in thought. She seems to be able to do it anywhere.

I have multitudes within me.

I have my collaborator in this project, Jesse, who immediately said, with enthusiasm, “yes”, when I pitched the idea. He creates. He encourages his kids to be creative. He sees and thinks and considers and reflects. I’ll leave it to him to tell and show you more.

I have my improv family. They’re rambunctious, timid, bonkers, supportive, the best variety of flavors, broken, weird. And trying. In the sense that they’re people who try things, take risks, make space for others to take risks, and then jump off alongside them into whatever might happen.

I have my musicians and music lovers. Music is our birdsong, an innate second language. Or maybe first. I love, even in English, the syncing of syllables. So susurrus. We send songs of sadness, of ponderous thoughts, of unexplained feelings, forth and back, and forth again. And we nearly all agree that the opening riff of “Barracuda” by Heart is one of the best ways to start a rock song.

I have multitudes within me.

There’s many more to mention. I only have a thousand words.

So, the story of Jesus driving the demons from the one called Legion I have concerns about. Certainly, he did the pigs no favors. I think Jesus did Legion dirty. Like electroshock, only for the soul. Sure, Legion seemed to recover. But at what cost? What if those ghosts were angels? Or simply ghosts? They might have been giants.

The story, as told, focuses on the stripper (yes, I wanted to call Jesus a stripper), not on the one stripped. In Western society, especially American society, complete independence is something to strive for, aspire to, the self-made, the individual.

But it’s not like that.

We strip ourselves, in our inner spaces, of thinking we have to rid ourselves of the influence of others. To shame ourselves. To be unlike the people in our lives. And there’s value in that in certain cases and circumstances. But others are who we’re made of.

Every grandparent.
Every parent.
Every sibling
Every nibling.
Every family member.
Every partner.
Every friend.
Every acquaintance.
Every stranger.

We embody, to some degree, good or bad, each of them. Humans are social. It’s not really about who I am or who you are. It’s about who WE are. The complexity of our relationships, the twisted knot of being, the will to be vulnerable with ourselves, all are only the start of discovering what it means to be human. I like to think being human is being each other.

And so, I offer a prayer of sorts.

Let us be
Let us become
Let us be together in both
Let us find
Let us explore
Let us fuck up
Let us contain multitudes with us