Asakiyume mita

I went for an annual physical the other day. The place I go, they make you fill out this form where you rate how you're feeling mentally/emotionally ("I think the world would be better off without me (a) never (b) sometimes (c) often (d) always"--that type of thing). I tend toward the melancholic, and these haven't been the most cheerful few years--I mean, it's been a Five Year Plan's worth at least of not-greatness--but basically I'm good. I checked "never" for all of them except one, "Have you been depressed recently?" I mean, who hasn't? But I also checked that it doesn't interfere with my life, etc., because it doesn't.

So first comes someone who does the basic screening, and he says, "Did you happen to fill out the X-246 form?" (or whatever they call the form--it wasn't an intuitive name), and I said yes and gave it to him, and he said "Great," and set it down on the table without a second look. Or maybe he gave it a second look and made a spot judgment that I was clearly fine.

Later came the nurse practitioner who was going to do the physical. She set her laptop down on top of the form on the desk, which definitely precluded her looking at it. She didn't ask after it. We did all the physical stuff, I thanked her, she left, and I put my clothes back on. I collected the form from the desk and shoved it in my pocket and left.

I don't really have any mental or emotional issues I want to talk about them with. But like... why make people fill out a form like that you're not going to even acknowledge what people write? I suppose if I'd checked off red-flag boxes, they would have initiated a conversation.

In better news, it's the season when starlings mass in the trees, somehow invisible in spite of their numbers, and talk to each other in their squeaky-wheel way of talking. And then they fly through the trees, and you catch these flashes of black, like sparkles on water, but opposite.

One of my students at the jail was talking about all the stuff she's dealing with, and how alone she feels and what hard going it is.

"I'm carrying around so much luggage with nothing in it," she said.

That hit me instantly. So much crap to lug around, and all the bags are empty.

"That's really poetic," I said. "It says a lot."

She gave me a smile and a seriously? look and said, "You know that's just a phrase, right? A thing people say when they're high: You're tripping without no luggage."

"Hah! No, I didn't know that. I thought it was totally new with you."

But a little later I realized--should have realized in the moment--that was new with her. The thing everyone says, Tripping without no luggage, is clever, but she's turned it on its head: burdened with luggage with nothing in it.