9.15.11

Crossroads
A combination of tales swirls in my mind; a current of dark observations and considerations.

"They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened. I said that they shouldn’t be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere" (Barthelme 1981).

"To what extent do we allow ourselves to become imprisoned by docilely accepting the roles others assign us or, indeed, choose to remain prisoners because being passive and dependent frees us from the need to act and be responsible for our actions? The prison of fear constructed in the delusion of the paranoid is no less confining or less real than the cell that shy persons erect to limit their own freedom in anxious anticipation of being ridiculed and rejected by their guards - often guards of their own creation" (Zimbardo 1973).

"'Listen lady,' he said in a high voice, 'if I had of been there [to see Jesus' miracles] I would of known [they were true] and I wouldn't be like I am now.' His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, 'Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!' She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them" (O'Connor 1953).

History sometimes seems to pull at secret parts of your mind, revealing those hidden synapses that connect you to generations uncounted. Possibility can seem like such a heavy burden.

Children, are we not all children? Scared, sad, hopeful, unsure - cycles of feeling seem to both bind our hearts or bind our hearts together. Are we doomed to repeat history or are we supposed to?

It seems at certain crossroads that life can so easily seem real and surreal simultaneously; its incredibility can haunt, its terror can give hope. Crossroads remind me of Mr. Robert Johnson; crossroads remind of me the blues. Seems strangely ironic: do you know the tale of Robert Johnson?

Last night I was washed over by a strange feeling; I felt like my soul could somehow clearly observe the reality of the moment because it had been ripped out of the moment. It was a sad sweetness, like a man in the midst of the sea, grateful for its bounty and terrified by its depth. The feeling somewhat permeates today, considering unknowns like the possibility of affection - the flutter of the heart both excited and anxious, afraid to lose control, afraid to have it.

"Standin at the crossroad
tried to flag a ride
Standin at the crossroad
I tried to flag a ride
Didn't nobody seem to know me babe
everybody pass me by"