The
other day I was driving on the freeway and the Google directions lady said, “take
a slight left” then “keep left” and then “merge onto such and such freeway.” The
freeway eventually took a full left turn; I crossed a bridge, and ended up traveling
perpendicular to my previous path. If I’d been just one lane to the right I
would’ve missed my rather unusual off-sided exit.
Meanwhile I feel some big shifts happening deep in my head and
heart. Like plate tectonics. Super slow, practically unnoticeable until, BAM!, some crust snaps and
the whole landscape is altered. My crust has been bending for weeks, months,
years. I think The Big One is on its way.
Prob’ly some villages are going to be sunk into the sea, and some cities lost
to tsunamis…but if the intelligence reports are accurate they’re villages full
of hostiles anyway, so maybe it’s OK? You know, like cutting off a gangrenous
limb….
In
Les Miserables the rebels build a little barricade in the city, manned
by students and the poor. The legit army comes to quell the uprising by saying,
more or less, “We’ve got you surrounded, you’re going to die. Give up and you’ll
just go to prison, except for the ones in charge. We’re totally killing them.”
But the students, the poor, and the sympathizers are all tired of oppression. They choose death over oppression. The night before the battle they drink together, and calmly prepare
for battle, and death.
Man, I feel it. All the metaphors for eerie calm. I hear Galadriel
telling me all mysterious-like that my “quest stands upon the edge of a knife,”
and that if I “stray but a little…it will fail, to the ruin of all.” (Sheesh.
No pressure.) But this stupid ring has to go to stupid Mordor, and I have to
stupid take the stupid ring. So I’m walking to Mordor, I’m building the
barricade, I’m waiting for The Big One, and I ask myself, “Dude. What are you doing?”
I don’t have a good answer. In fact, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and
shake my head like an old lady with Parkinson’s. Dunno. Just don’t know.
Only,
I do know. I'm changing. Because I can. I said I'd die trying, and I meant it. So with
a Captain Aubrey gleam in my eye, I say, “Mr. Mowett, change of course!” The Freak Flag has been at half-mast too long.
Time
to run up the colors!
 |
| Seventeen-year-old me knew how to fly the flag! |
