Every morning on my way to work, as I make my way up from the platform to the world outside Atlanta's Five Points MARTA station, I do my best to go through the same turnstile every morning. This started on my first day back on this job (after a year-and-one-half interregnum), almost seven months ago. And I'll bet that in all those days (excluding the occasional time I've gotten off at a different station in search of the wild donut) that I've only missed that turnstile two or three times.
The first time that this happened--I think because the turnstile was closed for some reason--I had a mild panic attack. I didn't want push my way through the next one over, but as I forced myself to, I thought, "What a strange reaction." Why in the world should it matter?
But then that's when I realized that that is how we make our ways through a very complex world. We look for touchstones. We fashion routines. As we make our way through the chaos of the average day, we look for anchors anywhere we can find them.
On my lunch half-hours, I'm currently reading a novel called "Old School" by Tobias Wolff. It's what the Germans would call a Bildungsroman, a novel of education. Set in a boys prep school in the school year of 1960-61, it's the first person narrative of a young man who is trying to understand himself as both an individual and as a writer. In the part of the book I was reading today, the unnamed narrator examines several of the short stories of Ernest Hemingway. And in the portion of the discussion concerning "Big Two-Hearted River," I found this:
You saw everything Nick did, in precise, almost fussy descriptions that most writers would've left out. How he drives the pegs of his tent until the rope loops are buried, and hold his pants and shoes in his hand when leaving the tent at sunup. How he dampens his fishing leaders. Exactly how much flour and water he uses to make his pancakes--a cup of each. I'd liked being in on all these rough solemnities but I had missed the fact that Nick observes them so carefully--religiously is not too strong a word--because they keep him from falling apart.
It's just funny that I had been thinking about these touchstones this weekend and then come across this passage today. And just for the record, I went through the wrong turnstile this morning.
1 comment:
This is interesting. I also have the tendency to delve back into my personal treasure trove of books, while my wife (former English major and soon-to-be grad student that she is) reads" in 10 directions at once. I'm starting to edge a bit out of my self-made cave, rubbing my eyes in the unaccustomed sunlight. Reading "Old School" is part of that effort for me, an attempt I'm making to see if living authors can actually stack up against the dead ones.
Of course, outside of "Old School" and "Chronicles, Vol. 1," I've got bookmarks in several volumes (unusual for me--I'm usually a one-at-a-time man), all of which are works by the honored dead. Two are by Hesse, "Demian" and "Steppenwolf." Apparently times of crisis and transformation call books on the same theme.
I, however, cannot skip around in books. I often wish I could. However, I am to books what Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" is to movies. I have to go methodically from the beginning to the end. If there's an introduction, I'll read it. If there's a preface, I'll read it. If there's a dedication, I'll read it. Printing history, acid-free paper statement, permission to quote from, it all goes into what I try to pass off as a mind. However, as Felix said on the old "Odd Couple" TV show, "We are what we are."
Post a Comment