Concomitant (Daily Planet email #1117)
We sit at the end of the pier, looking at the horizon and watching for hooks. Big juicy worms, sometimes a clot of hamburger, or otherwise bright and useless plastic. We feel we are being played, maybe. We feel our attention is being used against us, probably. Despite the evidence both past and present, despite all of our misgivings, we are tempted, distracted, and definitely wanting. Are these the traps our parents warned us against? Is this what happened to the Uncle we no longer talk about? The hook dances, impersonating delight. We just want to be warm and fed – does that make us foolish besides?
The old heads gather at the fire circle and tell their tales of 9/11. The stories are oddly similar but very specific, and engage us with wonder and pity and a weird middle-chest adrenaline. In their telling, something is being lost before their eyes, something besides the obvious. It’s a striving image like connection or coherence, a wrong-headed belief that we could use the pieces to build together on a foundation of agreement or prevention or whatever. After all of this, they are still certain there are good answers out there, maybe even good solutions, but none come to mind at the moment. They are equally certain none of them have been tried yet. It’s a September song.
Early on, we were given all the answers, book answers. It was instruction. They taped paper footprints down the hallways, we followed those steps and took our seats, and there they laid it on us. They gave us the colors, which we liked. They taught us songs we would never forget. We got the numbers, we got the paste. We were put next to people we had to learn to withstand and that was useful. And then they taught us kindness, which always seemed a little off, simplistic maybe. What if we weren’t feeling kind that day? What if we wanted someone’s cookie? What if our neighbors were unkind first? So many questions, so little explication – our desires were left to fend for themselves.
Only later did we paste it together: Oh no, this was consensus again! What madness! You can’t help if I believe different, and I can’t help if you don’t believe anything! Stuck between nowhere and everywhere, there is no middle for us to meet in! All we can do is mock and fight, and bite and scratch, and break and brag. Don’t get me wrong, it’s engaging all right, but isn’t it more than a little useless? We’ve known so much stuff for so long enough now, the results should be better don’t you think? Well, I don’t get it and I don’t wanna get it. Soon as I get it, I’m gonna run to the edge of this lining and see where the sky takes me, if it’ll have me. Otherwise, see you soon.
