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I love plane rides because it's one of the few times that I think—can't help but think—about things larger than myself. The view out of the little plastic rectangle tells me—look, the world! Look how much of it there is aside from you! Look how much there is to learn and love and look after! Look how much of it is not you. Don't forget don't forget don't forget. But then we land and I pick up my things, double check for them in the seat pockets (training myself to quit losing things), file out the hatched door all reverted and zoomed in to the sight directly in front of me. And I forget.
I could live traveling. What is home, anyway, but what we cobble together out of our changing selves? Do you hear that? That is the sound of gorgeous. I'm quoting Abigail Thomas, who is amazing. Her writing is simple, not plain, lovely, not proud, amazing and amazing. In her memoir she mentions something about her dog eating a brand new litter of kittens. Eating. As in ate the kittens. In the margin I wrote in blue highlighter "WTF." That is enough for me to not like dogs, straight up. WTF.
Lately I've been thinking of God in terms of Ultimate Author. Can you imagine maintaining over 6 billion storylines simultaneously? Each of them infinite in that ancestry and progeny factor into a single storyline (past shapes us) so it's 6 billion simultaneous plots, sometimes with their respective prequels and sequels coexisting (e.g., child, father, grandfather), the sequels themselves an ellipsis into infinity until at least the Second Coming (I guess anything goes thereafter.) Having them intertwine over and under, woven tangled twists of fate at precise moments ("coincidence"), all coming back full circle somehow, each story as unbelievable and interesting as the next, can you imagine?
In a piece I wrote in college, I gave this line to a character—I'm embarrassed to say what it was— and my professor (Tony Earley!) declared it "trite." Trite! You mean to say this feeling has been felt again and again, over-expressed to the point of cliche? It was so fresh and heavy to me (why yes, sometimes I project my own emotion)....their fears so fresh to them; it is inconceivable that everyone has felt them. Quoting Greer now. Why wasn't I able to recall things like this in biology? And my train of thought derails.
If every imaginable feeling has been felt—joy, fear, disappointment, anger, etc.—there's really not that great a range—what does it say about us? Humans. (Go humans go. Quaker Oats now.) I wonder if there are emotions that have never been identified with a word. Sometimes I think I feel something I can't put my finger on (is there a word for everything?), it's just a box of some feeling inside of me that was born of nowhere but me. But I guess everyone likes to feel unique.
Although if you think of it as God authoring 6 billion individual yet intersecting plots, unruffled as vanilla by the feat, maybe it's okay to feel that way. Maybe it's an insult not to feel that way.
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| | Posted 5/15/2009 6:38 PM - 13 Views
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