Intersecting Egg McMuffins

I spent much of geometry class at McDonalds, full disclosure. The classroom was located next to the student parking lot and I had a friend that thought highly of Egg McMuffins.

Let's put that out there as we measure a theory in existential geometry: I am likely wrong. But here goes anyway. Two lines intersect at a point. I'm thinking that any given person/individual is a unique collection of points--the intersections of various lines. These lines not only meet at points, but these points actually create us.

Lines come from everywhere. Our parents are two lines. Where you grow up is at least one line. Family members, friends, teachers, what books you read, what sports you play, imbibing a memorable sunrise on the river or in the mountains--all the various experiences we have are all lines, intersecting at you/me.

Each person is a different collection of points, of intersecting lines. And the funny thing is, in as much as we are a collection of these lines, these points, we are interconnected and not individuals alone.

William Carlos Williams busts this line/thought out in Paterson, pulling the disparate together to clarify/ and compress.

To think of that pulling the disparate together as the role of the artist or poet is spot on. But I also think each of our existences is the same concept--the pulling together of the disparate lines, which meet in points, which points are us. Intersecting Egg McMuffins.

* Sculpture is "Tracks," by Gene Kangas, 1983.

As the bush shakes; I'm shaking it, boss

Early fall's rented orange has begun its move to brown. Brown holds the hue, but can't keep the space, lets go and, relieved of the weight, branches shake in the wind.

"I'm shaking it, boss!"

We track the leaves, our arcs are the same, dropping to the grass, leaves, bushes. It's not the real estate we picked out, but here we are. Now what?

"I'm shaking it, boss!"

Keep shaking. Don't know what else to do. We're not ready, don't want the barrel delivery at the end, that comes when we go still.

No, not still--we're shaking it, boss. Every day, when still prevails, we shake the bush, we show we're here, accounted for. We're here, boss...

all of a piece, alone
in a wind that does not move the others--
in that way: a way to spend
a Sunday afternoon while the green bush shakes.

* italics from "Cool Hand Luke" and William Carlos Williams's "Paterson"

Three Bridges

The river was dry at that point. The foot bridge no longer necessary, but cool. It used to shush trains across, through town, now the girls like to bike to it. A new job, a new life, re-imagined.

Not like the bridge at lunch, which never stops vomiting cars across. Near that bridge, the waterfowl is primarily helicopters and commercial jets, which you can't shoot at. There are no duck blinds along the river. No one works the water, except to give tours.

Near both these bridges, a third, but not geographically. In Paterson, N.J., but in this case held in the mind, lit there by the pages of Williams' words. I've never seen it, but, sitting next to the lunch bridge,  the sound of Paterson's falls drowns out the whup-whup-whup call of the bird about to touch down and the one taking off.

"Refined by the fire"

Three lines have stuck with me. They are renting space in my mind, probably deeper. The first is from John Harbaugh during a Sunday night press conference.

"That's what being refined by the fire is all about," he said it about wide receiver Torrey Smith, who dropped a game-winning touchdown before catching the game-winner a couple plays later to beat the Steelers. Refined by the fire, learning and being changed by doing it, real-time, on the stage. The bigger the stage, the bigger the fire, the greater the refining.

The second line is from TV on the Radio and pumped through my headphones while on a four-mile run last week, the longest so far of my return to running.

"There is hardly a method you know," which I thought about in terms of getting back to something. It's not about method, or technique, it's about the attempt. It's about getting out there and learning. And the going changes you. It refines you by action.

Sport isn't just about form, or study, or preparation, though all those things are a part. It's about being on the playing field. In that context, for me it's about getting out the door and running, or in the gym, or on the rock climbing wall.

I've also been diving back into William Carlos Williams, who supplies the third line for us.

"There are no ideas, but in things," from his epic and awesome Paterson, which is a constant source of inspiration and motivation for me. Tied into the first two lines, the first two ideas, you don't have "perseverance" as an abstract concept, you have Torrey Smith catching a game-winning touchdown after making a couple mistakes earlier in the game. You don't have "endurance" as an idea apart from the runner pushing him/herself beyond their limits into that reserve. You don't have "art" aside from the painting or poem or play.

Three lines, over the course of the week, each of which has stuck to me. A post-game press conference, a lyric heard during a run, a heady, memorable line from Williams. But even the lines don't exist in the abstract, they are tied to people and particular points in time. Maybe they point somewhere. Maybe it's back to the sources.