When I was in the second grade, I took a right of passage. My first reconciliation. This used to be called confession but they've since softened the terminology to sound less threatening and more In line with a kind of balancing of spirit the Catholic Church wants people to believe they create. So I sat in a room. They've also disposed of confessionals so now you actually have to look the priest in the eye when you admit your faults, this alteration serving as an equal and opposite deterrent to the relaxed feeling created by the new name. So I sat there, and I didn't have anything I was willing to admit to. I could have told him that Cameron Diaz made me think naughty things when I watched "The Mask" (or was it Lilu in the fifth element...? It was bothhhh) or that I called some kid a poser, kicked him in the balls and ran away (incongruously yelling "wuss!" as I retreated to my large crew of homies across the playground - my bad Gunnar Littrup you had a weird name). But what good was that when I could just ask God for forgiveness in the privacy of my own bed later that night? That release valve always present in the back of your head can really lead to some bad actions.
Anyway...to reconcile...to bring something into agreement or harmony, to conform, in my case, to converge two contrary ideas. But have you ever tried to reconcile something that's just irreconcilable? I have. I'm pretty good at it. And what I mean by that is the exact opposite of what you think I do. I've been forced to accept that I'll never be able to reconcile some of the most important aspects of my life. I've done this and I can't take it back, This happened and I wish it hadn't, I said the meanest stuff to the person I love most...some of the most defining moments. And I don't know if that makes me more adept at handling life or just more confused. Things don't match up. I am not who you see in front of you right now. I'm Travis. But that means entirely different things based on which hemisphere I'm in. In China it means "Travis, like the UK band". In South Africa everyone called me Travie McCoy for the first three months. Yea...sure..huh? No man in America has ever called me Travie. Here (in the States) it means the Scadron brother or the dude from Michigan who moved to China and grew a beard to prove he was a traveler. We all have beards where I come from. Who the hell is gonna tell me to shave my beard? My Chinese boss is too afraid to even look at my beard. Michigan what?
In China I'm just doing what everyone is doing, here I'm doing what no one is doing. reconcile that...I have no identity because my identity doesn't mean shit. My identity was based on a moment that passed. On a second that's masked, on a breath that I took a decade ago as I stared through the glass of a White Volvo my friend totaled and crashed. And I crashed my car too. Racing down washtenaw with my friend Ziggy Bru. And I told my parents that I saved a poor dog but the truth is I lost the race no matter how hard I fought. And didn't you too? Didn't we all? Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here listening to my sobbing. But I do know one thing. And that's that we are all here. Together. And we share something. Anything.
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