I was re-reading my last blog post as I sit on my fire escape in the dappled light of a five 'o clock rise (from a 3pm nap), trying to shake the last of my fuzzy dreams from my introverted head
amidst an afternoon hum punctuated by ice cream trucks and explosions of laughter from the myriad backyard barbecues surrounding me, when it
occurred to me that the extremes I've reached in the course of 2 S
aturdays warrants a explanation for why the last one was so memorable.
When was the last time you crossed a line? When was the last time you sat down to think about what it means to cross a line? And why a LINE in the first place?
I want to picture us all in some three dimensional space moving collectively in a fourth dimension, like a cloud shifting shape across the flat of the sky. But instead, it appears that we're towering over a plane crossed egregiously by proprieties, trapping us within some n-sided figure we can call a territory. Perhaps these territories overlap. Perhaps every edge is a different color, or a different degree of transparent, and our shapes are uniquely our own with this added dimension of opaqueness. Maybe some shapes are fairly circular and you can move far in any direction before you get to a line that forces you into a quandary. Perhaps some shapes are hatched, winding, pocked, or spiraled and you're forced to reach an edge at a far more frequent rate than your circular neighbors.
Maybe it isn't a series of two-dimensional boundaries trapping us like pong between a wall and a paddle. Maybe it's like a laser show and the lines don't make a shape at all but instead force us to weave through our lives imperceptibly shifting our course but never letting us into the space directly behind the line without some transgression. Though, even in my most subdued post-nap state, it's obvious that a two-dimensional line defense can be breached by even the least forceful of hops or, in the case of three-dimensional laser shows, a minimally flexible limbo.
So what makes this 'line in the sand' idiom so meaningful? Shouldn't we be talking about busting through an infinite plane? A real wall without doors to knock against? Real boundaries to bounce back from? Real decisions to weigh and make weighty? Why a line in the first place? Because boundaries are contrived?
As my weekend, yet again, started out with a series of strobe lights and endless dancing and inter-party txting coordination, I realized that I have, of late, crossed lines that make lines seem too easy to cross. I miss the lines of yesteryear, fraught with consequence and ramifications. Real barbed wire, real edges bordering chasms. These days, as I cross line after line, and I cease hitting the weighty decision-makers of youth, the rate at which my shape is opening up is alarming; the transparency clause overtakes the color-schema and I've begun to lose track of where my dead-ends are, how to back out of pockets, how to embrace structure, how to navigate my shape without shifting my shape.
I think this happens to everyone. You know where your wall-lines are and you realize your visible lines aren't the impenetrable infinite planes you thought they were. You realize your shape is flexible, that it's not all of us but ONE of us in a cloud tracking across the sky, dispersing, converging, shifting density and altitude like we control the physicality of our worlds. But what seems pressing in knowing this is I don't quite know whether to electrify my softer edges, build titanium walls, avoid lines altogether or just accept the responsibility for the shape of my life.
So if progress comes at the expense of growth, growth comes at the expense of experience, and experience means tacking your way through the laser show regardless of how much you get burned, why start out in shapes in the first place? Training wheels with which to respect neighborly relations without territorial border-wars? Don't even get me started on the interconnectedness of all these lines; where the pushing against or snapping of one line shifts every other line into a new alignment, like an alternate universe, prime for sequels ad infinitum...
Summarily, I don't think I regret any of the lines I've limboed in my life (or slashed or hopped or been burned by). I do sincerely hope that none of the new lines I hop across border a chasm but I also think I'll make it my mission to obliterate the concept of perceptible shape as quickly as possible. I don't want to be attached to a territory. Blind me and make me jog through the lay of the land by muscle memory. I mean, really, how else can we know how far we can run in a lifetime if we're not running as fast as we can across an infinite plane, serpentine and free?
I guess what I'm saying is that, in the end, know your bounds but, more importantly, live your open spaces. And if you come across a line you think you may want to cross, trust your gut, chances are, it'll open you up to a track of sky that's endless and blue. And then run run run your socks off. It's the only way to get there.
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