Patchwork

CHAPTER THIRTY: Fragments Forced Together

In which our hero's train of thought derails.

[Saturday afternoon, October 4th, Metamora, IL]

"I guess that the early fall is going to be an oddly appropriate time for me to have made this trip. Just like the leaves that will soon be falling from the trees, it seems that this trip will most likely be when all but the last one or two connections to this place will fall away from me (1)."

"There is still a curious sense of both physical and personal isolation for me here. I'm listening to the wind rustling the corn and looking at how the green of the trees plays against the sky (2). It might be nice to have someone (here) that I could use as a verbal drain for all the stuff wandering around in my head, but luckily I have paper (3)."

"The butterfly effect: The notion that one tiny simple choice , the alteration of one minimal event could have kept me from sitting here at this moment (4). A different result that could have been better, worse, or equally indifferent. Really has no bearing on the fact that I'm here now, but it does provide a fertile field for playing the 'what if' game (5)."

"Is there any real reason I should feel bad about the way things are now (6)? I suppose, but only if I'm still feeling this sense of isolation and disconnect when I get home. Home. Home is not here. I guess this is now just where I used to live. There be no tiki in Metamora."

(1) Nice thought, but thus far it has been far from that easy in practice. I guess that one of the things this trip did was come close to shattering the unrealistic notions of the past that I have been holding on to for so long. Having the disparity of memory versus reality thrust into my face has really and deeply cracked all of those false notion even though I really don't like that. The whole idea of giving up on all those things from the past still makes me uncomfortable even though they are being proven to be valueless. Maybe it's the whole notion of needing to have something. Could also be the fear of having to be present in the present without a bunch of props holding me up.

(2) As much as I really enjoy the pure raw heat of the summer, I think fall may be my favorite season. May be the shifting of the sun lower in the sky but the colors seen to be more vibrant. The cool air is also something I find pleasant. And, of course, there's Halloween. And I have a number of memories regarding pleasant fall wanderings.

(3) Or not, for those of you who may be trying to slog through all this.

(4) For example: although you could conceptually clone Hitler, you could never duplicate all the events that made him who he was in the end. So, even though I could jump into the ol' time travelling DeLorean and go back to the time when I was attempting to date Number One, there are an infinite number of variables that were in play that I could not control. Therefore, no Groundhog Day for me.

(5) Mental masturbation at its finest and most pointless.

(6) I can't remember the context in which I was phrasing this. Not sure if I meant just the whole reunion scenario, or my overall life in general. Either way, I don't think I have a good answer, as usual.