{"id":10600,"date":"2012-04-20T11:30:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T15:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=10600"},"modified":"2017-04-19T05:56:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T09:56:58","slug":"intersections-close-by-milestones-passed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/intersections-close-by-milestones-passed\/","title":{"rendered":"Intersections Close By, Milestones Passed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 and the New York City skyline at night (January, 2011)]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alain de Botton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

IV<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man is walking in a field
\nand everywhere at his feet
\nin the short grass of April
\nthe small purple violets
\nare in bloom. As the man walks
\nthe ground drops away,
\nthe sunlight of day becomes
\na sort of darkness in which
\nthe lights of the flowers rise
\nup around him like
\nfireflies or stars in a sort
\nof sky through which he walks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Wendell Berry [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

[Over a cup of coffee]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over a cup of coffee or sitting on a park bench or
\nwalking the dog, he would recall some incident
\nfrom his youth — nothing significant — climbing a tree
\nin his backyard, waiting in left field for a batter’s
\nswing, sitting in a parked car with a girl whose face
\nhe no longer remembered, his hand on her breast
\nand his body electric; memories to look at with
\ncuriosity, the harmless behavior of a stranger, with
\nnothing to regret or elicit particular joy. And
\nalthough he had no sense of being on a journey,
\nsuch memories made him realize how far he had
\ntraveled, which, in turn, made him ask how he
\nwould look back on the person he was now, this
\nperson who seemed so substantial. These images, it
\nwas like looking at a book of old photographs,
\nrecognizing a forehead, the narrow chin, and
\nperhaps recalling the story of an older second
\ncousin, how he had left long ago to try his luck in
\nArgentina or Australia. And he saw that he was
\nbecoming like such a person, that the day might
\narrive when he would look back on his present self
\nas on a distant relative who had drifted off into
\nuncharted lands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stephen Dobyns [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

On the Metro<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the metro, I have to ask a young woman to move the packages beside her to make room for me;<\/div>\n
she’s reading, her foot propped on the seat in front of her, and barely looks up as she pulls them to her.<\/div>\n
I sit, take out my own book — Cioran, The Temptation to Exist<\/em><\/a> — and notice her glancing up from hers<\/div>\n
to take in the title of mine, and then, as Gombrowicz<\/span> puts it, she \u201caffirms herself physically,\u201d that is,<\/div>\n
becomes present in a way she hadn’t been before: though she hasn’t moved, she’s allowed herself<\/div>\n
to come more sharply into focus, be more accessible to my sensual perception, so I can’t help but remark<\/div>\n
her strong figure and very tan skin — (how literally golden young women can look at the end of summer.)<\/div>\n
She leans back now, and as the train rocks and her arm brushes mine she doesn’t pull it away;<\/div>\n
she seems to be allowing our surfaces to unite: the fine hairs on both our forearms, sensitive, alive,<\/div>\n
achingly alive, bring news of someone touched, someone sensed, and thus acknowledged, known.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I understand that in no way is she offering more than this, and in truth I have no desire for more,<\/div>\n
but it’s still enough for me to be taken by a surge, first of warmth then of something like its opposite:<\/div>\n
a memory — a girl I’d mooned for from afar, across the table from me in the library in school now,<\/div>\n
our feet I thought touching, touching even again, and then, with all I craved that touch to mean,<\/div>\n
my having to realize it wasn’t her flesh my flesh for that gleaming time had pressed, but a table leg.<\/div>\n
The young woman today removes her arm now, stands, swaying against the lurch of the slowing train,<\/div>\n
and crossing before me brushes my knee and does that thing again, asserts her bodily being again,<\/div>\n
(Gombrowicz again), then quickly moves to the door of the car and descends, not once looking back,<\/div>\n
(to my relief not looking back), and I allow myself the thought that though I must be to her again<\/div>\n
as senseless as that table of my youth, as wooden, as unfeeling, perhaps there was a moment I was not.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(C.K. Williams [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Reverie in Open Air<\/strong><\/p>\n

I acknowledge my status as a stranger:
\nInappropriate clothes, odd habits
\nOut of sync with wasp and wren.
\nI admit I don’t know how
\nTo sit still or move without purpose.
\nI prefer books to moonlight, statuary to trees.<\/p>\n

But this lawn has been leveled for looking,
\nSo I kick off my sandals and walk its cool green.
\nWho claims we’re mere muscle and fluids?
\nMy feet are the primitives here.
\nAs for the rest — ah, the air now
\nIs a tonic of absence, bearing nothing
\nBut news of a breeze.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rita Dove [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Consider the coral reef… In the coral reef, the individual little coral animal doesn’t even know the coral animals next to him. They keep building reefs, which are occupied by millions of individuals who have no knowledge of one another. It’s like the Queen Elizabeth going down the harbor when the lights are on at night, and it happens that a child is born on board about that moment, and in the next moment an old man dies on board. You don’t see that in those lights, because the Queen Elizabeth is like a floating coral reef where new life is coming in and old life is going out. In New York City, as you get up on high and see all the lights of the skyline, there are houses where people are dying and there are houses where people are being born. It’s a great coral reef too.<\/p>\n

There’s also a sort of continuity in the way each of our cells is dying and new ones are coming in. We are, in effect, walking coral reefs; the latest information discloses that 98 percent of the atoms of which we consist change annually. So we’re simply a kind of form, as the Queen Elizabeth is a form, with life going on inside. The atoms get changed, the people on board change, yet there is a sum-total form that goes on. You and I are walking, overlapping life-cell creations and life-cell deaths, atoms coming in and going out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Buckminster Fuller [source<\/a><\/em>])
\n_______________________<\/p>\n

\n

Note:<\/strong>\u00a0Running After My Hat<\/em>\u00a0turns four today.* Many thanks to everyone who’s stopped by, for any reason at all (including flat-out mistakes): just your silent footprints in the site statistics reassure me. This must be how it feels to build and tend a city park, with trails, trees, and waterways, and in between times just sorta sit back and watch strangers make use of it all (often oblivious to the park itself, just here to feed the birds, read, listen to their iPods, daydream, have a picnic, make out behind the trees…).<\/p>\n

But those of you who’ve not only stopped by but engaged the ranger in conversation, ah: you, you<\/em> have his deep and everlasting gratitude. For a writer, even an aspiring one, no pleasure remotely approaches that of a reader who takes the writer’s thoughts and words and transforms them into the reader’s own. Thank you so much!
\n_______________________<\/p>\n

* Which explains why I feel no guilt about indulging myself with a loooong whiskey river Friday<\/em> post, the selections chosen almost as much for my personal taste as because they fit the “theme.” :)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 and the New York City skyline at night (January, 2011)] From whiskey river: Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,12,1393,250,37,251],"tags":[341,758,1256,1579,1868,2958,2959,2960,2961,2962],"class_list":{"0":"post-10600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-03_runningaftermyhat","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-art","11":"category-onlineworld","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-thanks","15":"tag-anniversaries","16":"tag-wendell-berry","17":"tag-rita-dove","18":"tag-queen-elizabeth-2","19":"tag-alain-de-botton","20":"tag-stephen-dobyns","21":"tag-c-k-williams","22":"tag-buckminster-fuller","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2KY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10600"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19229,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600\/revisions\/19229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}