who else is there?
It’s 8:44 and I just returned to my room – my home – from a morning walk. I noticed, while on the walk, I was talking to myself – out loud. Maybe it’s talking with myself. I think either is accurate. I was not/am not concerned I noticed myself talking, out loud, with and to myself. I’ve noticed it a lot over, say, the past five or six months. Here’s me walking, here’s me talking, no one else there. Talking to myself. I think I became aware I was talking with myself – out loud – back in Encinitas, after I’d been there a few weeks and discovered and made three or four walking routes my own. Wait – that’s me, I’m having a conversation with myself. It could have been any old subject matter, not necessarily something I was worried about or felt sad about or amazed about or even puzzled about. Any and all of that. It was just, I noticed, me having an out loud talk with myself, and I noticed it a lot. Pretty much every walk. Often in my rented room. Even at a Pannikin coffee table. Even – so cool – flying on my boogie board out there in the ocean.
So, there I was again, half hour or so back, having another conversation with myself. And noticing myself talking to myself, in fact, noticing that I was noticing again. Somewhere back, probably Encinitas, I had the thought that the last time I talked to myself – out loud – so much and so often, was when I was a little kid. If I remember correctly, it’s something little kids do, for sure when they’re playing alone. And following that thread, and me eventually getting here with my fabulous and sharply honed skills of deduction, it means, yeah, that old guy right there, he’s playing alone. A while ago this morning on my walk I thought about my former wife Susan and how if I was a big talker in life she was no doubt my big talkee. Big, big listener, my confidant. And then – sliced – she was gone. Plus, on my walk today, I realized that my second biggest talkee was my son Spenser, also gone, some 1001 miles away. The primary conversationalists in my life – save for phone calls with Gavin or Kate or Joyce or Bob H or David P or someone – that avenue of expressing myself was just – like that – puff – gone. Which gets me to the title – who else is there?
I’ve thought about it, a few times, and I do not think this out-loud talking to and with myself is like early-onset psychosis – it doesn’t even feel neurotic to me. Not at all. I’m walking down a street and I think of something to say, it’s likely cool and hip and insightful and fun, and so it’s worth saying and I say it. Just happens I’m the only one there to listen and maybe reply.
It’s okay. Sometimes it’s cool. In context, it’s a little mournful. Usually it’s just what’s going on in another moment I’ve been blessed with.
Like the song – Talk Talk.