He has to ask this question three times to get an answer.
This makes me wonder if Horatio was sent for too
Or if Hamlet suspects he was sent for.
Have I wondered this already?
He’s already asked.
I’ve already wondered.
The third time he asks, though
He changes the focus. He asks “why did you leave?” twice
Before he finally asks what he really wants to know
Which is
“Why are you here?”
We do this.
We adjust our language, shift it and make it more direct
Til we finally learn what we need to say to get
What we want
Or need.

In a way, though, I wonder how much Hamlet really wants to know.
He interrupts himself the first time he asks and the third,
He keeps talking after he’s asked the question.
The effect, though, is one of easy camaraderie
The flush of greetings
Wherein everyone talks at once
Wherein there are so many things to say
We have to say them all at once.

How we talk to ourselves sometimes
How we label ourselves
So falsely
And then a friend
One who sees us truly
Who sees us better than we see ourselves
Sometimes
Can deny our our own mislabeling
No, you are most decidedly NOT
An asshole
A jerk
An idiot
A fool
A lazy bones
A philanderer
A lay about
A louse
A jackass.
Malign yourself all you want but I know the truth.

Despite my experience of things said to me
As violent,
It is striking to hear Hamlet
Speak of having violence done to his ear
With something so small as a polite misleading.
It is hyperbolic surely.
Surely much more serious violence has been done to Hamlet’s ears
Than to hear his friend called a “Truant.”
Surely much more is about to be done in this play.
But he is ready to prevent Horatio’s enemy
From calling him names.
What will he do to the man who murdered his father?
Are we primed to think of Hamlet as a great defender?

Next to me in the café
A boss is reading the riot act to his employees over cupcakes.
He’s not talking to me
But hearing him reprimand his employees
As if they were children
Does my ears violence too.

Repetition
Repetition
Repetition with slight variation, rather.
The repetition makes things sound so naturalistic-
Like you and me chatting about the weather
And the variation makes it familiar and new all at once.
In the Feldenkrais training we talk a lot about
The brain’s attraction to variation. As we repeat the movement,
It is the slight variation, the novelty of the small change
That keeps us curious.
The brain
In its seeking for elegance and ease
In its search for the best, most efficient way,
mileposts with variation
A head turning,
Eyes looking up:
“But in faith” replacing “Horatio”
all helps us bookmark these bits of learning.

And a very good odd to you.
I’ve always preferred the odd numbers
Probably because I am a bit off myself
I think I seem odd
I’m very clearly a three, not a two or a four
A nine, not an eight
I knows eights, I like them, even love them
They’re good evens.

Have Marcellus and Hamlet had a beer together?
Are they buddies?
Marcellus is always played as a guard
Or a nightwatchman
Or a captain
But what if he were also a friend of Hamlet’s
Brought to the parapets first
Because of his connection to the prince.
Then Marcellus goes to the next closest friend
(but also the one who hasn’t seen the prince yet) and gets a double confirmation. It is
Marcellus after all who knows where to find Hamlet conveniently. It is Marcellus who
Brings these people together.
What if they’re all friends somehow?
If so –
What happens to Marcellus?
After they see the ghost again
He disappears from the play.
He is sworn to silence and then vanishes.
Does he take off because the secret of a ghost and murder and an impassioned prince become too much for him?
Is Marcellus shaken so absolutely by this visitor from the other side
That he hops a boat to Asia to train as a mystic?
Where does Marcellus go?
Where has he been?

Is that you?
Where you been, buddy?
Haven’t seen you round the palace lately.
How’s the wife?
Really? How soon?

I didn’t realize you two knew each other
O and this guy –
What up, Marcellus?
(What’s this guy’s name again?) 
What are you doing on night shift?
My dad would never have asked you to do that.
Oh, right, the war preparations.
Oh, Marcellus –
Things might have been so different
Mightn’t they?
If I were on the throne now –
What am I saying?
If we had not lost my father –
If I’m wishing – I might as well wish myself that far back.

Shakespeare almost never starts a sentence with AND
And I almost always do.
I know I’m not supposed to
And maybe that’s why I do it.
It’s my grammatical way to take drugs and steal cars.
But the fact that Shakespeare has started this sentence with AND
Makes me wonder.
What is this AND doing here?
It feels like a very natural exchange between friends
“Bob, my good buddy! You’ve lost weight!
And what the heck have you been doing with yourself?
”

Except I still can’t quite work out
what “I’ll change that name with you” is doing in the middle of this exchange.
Yes, of course. Sir, my good friend. Clear as a bell.
I’ll change that name with you. Which name? How? Does he mean role? Does he mean identities? Why is he going to change a name with him?
Back to conversational speech that equates to “What are you doing here?”

In middle school, my social studies teacher taught us to write essays using
the “Bing. Bang. Bongo.” Structure. This sentence feels like Bing. Kaleidoscope. Bongo.

And there is And.
And I And and And and And
Because I want to add to what came before
And start anew
All at once.
And I cannot help myself.

It’s the classic classical tale
Royal Prince switches places with his humble servant who happens to look just like him
So that he might go out among his people freely
Unencumbered with his rarefied identity.
The servant is elevated to heights he has never seen before
Experiences softness all around him
When before he had only known edges.
Who fares better in this exchange?
I can’t remember how the story goes
Just that its always more complex than they think
It’s going to be.
I think sometimes they stay switched
With the servant delighted to be waited on
And the prince delighted to serve.
I think of it as a classic Freaky Friday
Where everyone understands and empathizes with one another a little bit more and they just can’t wait to get back to their own bodies.

He tends to fare better than his brother:
Sir My Mortal Enemy.
Their uncle, Sir Runs from Dragons Screaming
Gave them their names.
But he can’t be blamed, his father was
Sir Makes a Lot of Disgusting Noises in the Outhouse.