THE THREAD | You are so far flung

You take a handful of blue beads and a handful of red beads, then a handful of green, another of orange —yes, a handful each of any color. You place them all in a bowl, stir with a stick, stir clockwise or counterclockwise, it doesn’t matter, the effect is the same: Everything disperses. The yellows set out to mix with the reds and greens. The blues dive deep, depart from their likenesses, and emerge amongst purples and oranges. And in this way — how does it even happen? — they become distributed, mixed, stirred into some kind of equal balance. Some resemblance of design, yet haphazard. What is this, chaotic order?
 
It’s not only beads. Dice a red bell pepper, cube a zucchini, cut the okra, toss it all in a pot with some green peas and black beans. Stir and witness this — What is it, phenomenon? Miracle? Just the way the world works? — witness this all over again, the way likenesses depart and cozy up next to their opposites and other varieties. Exhibit A in the case against homogeneity, against uniformity, against just keep to yourself and your kind.
 
On the beach one afternoon, your daughter gathered shells and pebbles, arranged them by color and type in the palm of her hand, then closed her hands together, shook three times, and opened her palms wide. Look, she said. Look!
 
And one night beneath a dome of stars, you considered how a more orderly universe might place the stars equidistant from one another, a more perfect galaxy might be more easily measured, a more predictable world might keep things tidy, arranged, all sorted out. And yet look how the stars have spaced themselves, not arranged with precision but rather, good lord, from down here they are stirred around just so: a bear, a scorpion, a woman, a warrior.
 
You have placed small pieces of yourself into the hands of so many others. It has seemed excessive to keep so much of one thing contained here: A tribe unto yourself. And so there you go, a small part here, a small part there. Not divided and destroyed, not claimed or conquered. Offered outward. Given.
 
So many small pieces of you now strewn, flung far, stirred all around, clockwise or counterclockwise, no matter. A small piece of you is now there across town, curved around a warm mug in a coffee shop. And there, half way across the country, in a field gripping a hammer. And there, taking a piece of hard candy between the thumb and forefinger. And there, and there. You have dispersed pieces of yourself.
 
You are so far flung, but you are not scattered. You are distributed yet not diminished. No, you are not less for what you have given. You are somehow more.
 
You have stirred yourself into the world.

 

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What I'm reading: Willa Cather's The Professor's House, Landon Porter's Whiskey and Cash
What I'm listening to: Joseph's Trio Sessions Vol. 2, Gregory Alan Isakov's This Empty Northern Hemisphere
What I'm currently having too much fun with: MidtownConeGuy on Instagram

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Onward and inward and outward and upward,

Andrew