Longing for a Line

“I used to watch the line where the earth and sky met, and longed to go and seek there the keys of all mysteries, thinking that I might find there a new life, perhaps some great city where life should be grander and richer - and then it struck me that life may be grand enough even in a prison.”

“The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1869

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Dear Alex,

A line in the literal sense has little sense. There is no start or stop, both ends trailing in opposite ways for infinity. Just like that - going on and on, ongoing thread of a traveler through room and star, rootless by nature, absent of shadow or sound, a track stuck in motion.

Only an idiot would fantasize about such line.

If only we have a special line. Just like that - adding the qualifier, special, before a single streak of absurdity, as special as you think and mean it. Singled out, singing and swinging it higher and wider, a sling in time and gaze where earth and sky touch, touchstone of a line like no other, nonetheless a line so liked, lifeline to a billion sails and loins at sea.

Such special line would seem out of line with the vision of an idiot.

We can’t be idiots. If we were to walk straighter in line, posture fixed on a plumb line, nailing structure to the march of day, flow from cubicle to beach by twilight, connect the dots to destination, would this line, as inelastic and uncompromising as it may insist, become the one liner, the key to our lifelong riddles?

Last evening I returned to my work campus for the first time in nearly two months. I joined a brisk line at the entrance and followed procedural lines, my hands sanitized, mask donned, temperature and badge checked by frontline caretakers whose line of smile crinkled their facial covers.

Past the lobby, lines and outlines of expectation persisted to save lives. One posted sign read: “Stay safe. Stay apart.”

Lines less visible or more laudable are nevertheless standard lines of practice which in theory and culture sustain lives and livelihood. Even if you care not to observe these lines in order, you know one way or another a line of consequence or muse can strike you unamused.

When I left the building, the skyline cropped the last ray of color through hair, castles and firs along an ancient groove of secrets - lines and lanes of bills and names bound without seam, reopening to longer lines in scarcity, pork and drug shortage on shelves, Wendy burgers turning meatless, lines touching fingers pointing to slopes and keys that make more sense when you hear them from the strings of a harp.

Yours, Kate