FEALTY FEALTY FEALTY
What would you do if you arose to the same word flashing in your mind like “HOT DONUTS!!” over and over and over? I rolled over, feet scruff scruffing on the floor as the pliability in my back and hips slowly arrived, knowing I hadn’t set the coffee pot (FEALTY!FEALTY!) the night before. Feeding the dog. (FEALTY) getting the coffee going. “I don’t even know what that means, I think something about honor,” my arabica deprived brain says as it battles for a foothold (brainchild) at 3:57 a.m. “FEALTY!!!” I sit down to look it up.
fealty noun
fe·al·ty | \ ˈfē(-ə)l-tē \
plural fealties
Definition of fealty
1a : the fidelity of a vassal or feudal tenant to his lord
b : the obligation of such fidelity
The vassal vowed fealty to the king.
2 : intense fidelity
Fidelity. Honor. In the hours before the sun comes up. These are close enough. I’m at once at odds with the definition of fidelity:
fidelity noun
fi·del·i·ty | \ fə-ˈde-lə-tē , fī- \
plural fidelities
Definition of fidelity
1a : the quality or state of being faithful
his fidelity to his wife
b : accuracy in details : EXACTNESS
The movie's director insisted on total fidelity to the book.
2 : the degree to which an electronic device (such as a record player, radio, or television) accurately reproduces its effect (such as sound or picture)
I settle in and am spinning back and forth between thinking of Hi Fidelity as a good band name and fealty as a close relative of honor and try and move along with my morning. Where these things come from, I’ve decided, is complete randomness and I think to myself that I have had two posts like this in as many weeks. I then realize this is true, but that you don’t even know about the other one yet. A work in progress, passing through the editor. Some of you will see it soon. Maybe some others will have to work a little to get to it, the act of clicking two time’s, from post to profile, to link in bio, an uncrossed chasm of epic proportions in the morning.
This blog amazes me sometimes. Well “amazes” is the wrong word. I’ve bitched about that already. I’m intrigued and filled with some wonder. I constantly wonder what the point of some of these posts (this one) are about. “Do they even need to be about anything?” Probably not. I follow the words some days as they meander. Sometimes I come up with a blink of what I consider greatness. Not greatness against like Hemingway, though if we are in the circle of tree trust here, I’ve really only read the "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", a short story (which was great). The greatness I feel exists in a well written sentence here, an 80’s story there, tied back to the present, back and forth back and forth, a Jam Master Jay lesson in record scratching. It feels briefly like content. I welcome it.
There is a function on the book of faces called memories or something like that. It shows you what you posted about a year, two years or more ago about. This year my memories have finally come full circle to the first big streak of posts I did two years ago. I go and read most of them and what I find is similar to those flashes of content referenced above. I have been very good about going back “judge free” and just taking in what I was thinking. What I find is often similar to what I’m writing today, but with the luxury of time, I can sift the ideas from the framework in a critical way. I’ve mentioned before that I can go back to writings 10-12 years ago and see the same ideas. As such the Facebook memories don’t disappoint. My current content though, comes from reading the sometimes chopped, hurried lines and then reflecting to what I am doing today and being happy with the progress. I don’t give myself a ton of credit in this world but I’m getting better at this. And that, gives me pleasure.
This pleasure is short lived as it immediately heads towards wondering if people are reading it. Thinking I need the site to be better and on and on. It’s a web the mind weaves, but a spider on meth version. No concentric spirals just silk going in multiple directions, mostly devoid of any respect for geometry. Yet I continue, as often as I can remember to.
The phantom post I alluded to above is coming and it’s also the reason I’ve paused. It’s weight leaden, blotting out new ideas with a specific gravity I can’t define. It’s as if my mind is waiting to push out the new ideas until after the previous ones were published. Which makes sense. None of this exists to me in this vacuum of privacy. Only in the share. I’m hoping to connect.
This morning though there’s fealty. Fidelity. Honor. Or is it clarity? My mind can’t help but to make the jump from fealty to fidelity to the second definition of fidelity:
2 : the degree to which an electronic device (such as a record player, radio, or television) accurately reproduces its effect (such as sound or picture).
How high is my writing fidelity? My life fidelity? How accurate am I reproducing the effects I want to spread out into the mornings? A needle cutting back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
This morning, I’m again briefly content with the progress. The above is better than the memories from 2 years ago, when I spent five hundred words talking about a Chinese spoon and I still don’t care about the feudal system.
#hugsandhi5s
