My wife and I were sailing along the freeway. The Garmin was
telling us in measured tones to turn right in one mile. Our Prius was making
everything as easy and comfortable as possible for us. The climate inside was controlled.
The air inside the pressed steel and safety glass cabin of our silvery space/time
travelling device registered a cool 74 on the instrument panel. The changing
climate outside of our windows was hardly very much of our concern at the moment.
We were two moderns in our own technological time on a road trip to Kansas
City.
Bluetooth carried the recorded voices of Crosby, Stills,
Nash, & Young from an iPodTouch to our ears. And then, when I managed to ignore
that parroting Garmin, I managed to catch some fragments of the music and the
words coming out of the speakers.
“When you see the Southern
Cross for the first time
You understand now why
you came this way
‘Cause the truth you
might be runnin’ from is so small
But it’s as big as the
promise, the promise of a coming day”
A person could listen to a song for a hundred times and still
not really hear it.
I’m not entirely sure just what I was hearing inside my
Prius. I mean, we mostly live in a metaphorical world as it is. I have
sometimes wondered how much of the world out there beyond the confines of my
mind – even within the structures of mind - is real. Perhaps the four windows
around my body, as I am strapped securely into my bucket seat, are just more screens
like in the movies where you see the actors saying their lines with the images
of trees and soybean fields just blurring by in low resolution. But if I think
at all, metaphors are pretty much how I think.
They say that we were already living by our metaphors when
the first human beings crossed out of Africa. And now, we are indeed still not machines,
after all. Our thoughts are not just lines of code in a program. We are flesh,
blood and neurotransmitters. But who counts on their fingers anymore? When’s
the last time you rang someone up? What is it that you are dropping when a call
gets dropped? Does anyone hear it on the grapevine anymore? It might be time to
batten down the hatches. The world is awash in metaphors. Not all of them are fully
tethered to the modern world. What do we mean by our lives today, not to
mention our words?
Consider Alexander von Humboldt. When he crossed the equator
in 1799 during something like a three month journey on a wooden sailing ship across
the ocean, he was a human in his late twenties. Somewhere near South America the
man wrote these words in his journal: “On
the night of the 4th of July I saw the Southern Cross for the first
time it all its splendor.” And then
in his wandering, he and his
traveling companions tramped through the rain forest in all of its wildness. They
climbed the Andes without Vibram soles – what shoes they had had shredded. On
these jaunts in that day, they travelled on foot or in small boats. They did
have some guides, but von Humboldt mostly just made his maps as he went.
And as before and since, there was metaphor mingling in
everything he recorded of his journeys. So you might possibly try to imagine
what von Humboldt really meant when he said that he saw the Southern Cross for
the first time. This is what he actually wrote: “I saw the Southern Cross for the first time.” I don’t happen to believe
that he was just talking about the stars. But he was talking about stars.
And so what about Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?
None of us are talking in zeros and ones when we describe
our travels or write a song. We blend letters into words and words into images
and images into meaning. Metaphors.
Music. And at some point I, too, will cross an equator. I have traveled in a
hybrid ship along a concrete highway at speeds that would have been unimaginable
to Alexander von Humboldt. And he might still have understood something of my
words now as I now echo the words of many others. In reality, I never actually saw
that equator – that imaginary line
dividing North from South. Neither did von Humboldt. Whose idea was ‘north’ in the
first place?’ It did happen to be von Humboldt’s idea to describe human-caused
climate change. Alexander von Humboldt imagined new metaphors for his natural
world. But the universe is still much bigger than his or my life.
So back to here and now. Of course, I never saw those stars in that sky. The ones that von Humboldt saw. The Southern Cross. Remember,
if you will, a metaphor is made up out of a tangling of the real and the
imagined.
So here’s now my question: do you believe in an expansive
mind?
“Got out of town on a
boat
goin’ to the southern
islands …
I have been around the
world …”
Perhaps I should go ahead and tell you a little bit more of reality
as Dawn and I lived it on our road trip.
After less than an hour, we docked our Prius. There were red
bricks everywhere. On the streets. The sidewalks. Even the buildings rising
over our heads were made out of brick. We stood at the Crossroads. My traveling
companion suggested that we head east. I could see train tracks. Union Station.
But we weren’t heading that way, so I went ahead and followed Dawn.
At one point we stopped at a gallery. There were large
paintings behind large windows. It turned out that the woman inside also did
upholstery. She had a friendly curly-beige-furred little dog. I twizzled it’s
ears. It jumped up against my leg for more. But this is hardly very important
information.
After few more minutes, we followed her directions through the
brick streets and buildings toward Central and turned north.
Lulu’s Thai Noodle Shop was on the corner. It was packed
with the lunchtime crowd. I had never been to Lulu’s before, but Lulu’s had
hardly actually risen to metaphorical levels. I was expecting to eat, not to
see the Southern Cross.
We waited on a bench. There were talking strangers all
around. Lipstick here. A buttoned-down collar there. A tall bald man carried
plates with noodles through the aisle. He never looked from side to side.
Then a woman in black called our names. We followed her to a
table in the corner and she left menus. The lunch menu was simple, less than
ten different noodle dishes - each one - $8.99.
I had already nearly decided on a dish that I had never
eaten before: Beef Jantaboon. When our server came up to our table, my
traveling companion asked what was really popular among their offerings at Lulu’s.
The server seemed really friendly to me, but maybe she was just really good at
her job. She looked young. But then I am old. I had thought at a glance that
she was pretty with her thick curly dark hair tied back, but then I had hardly
looked beyond her eyes. They weren’t glittery like stars. I think that they
sparkled more like the sun reflecting off ripples on a wide ocean – or a river.
But I’m afraid that I’m slipping into the doldrums of detail here.
The young woman was suggesting three items from the menu
before us – including the Jantaboon. It was easy for me to follow her advice. Dawn,
my wife and travelling companion, sitting across the table from me - we shared forkfuls
from each other’s bowls of noodle. The noodles were good. We each got a small
crab Rangoon, but certainly that bit wasn’t important, either.
I occasionally looked out from our table and watched how the
hem of the cotton print of the server’s skirt fluttered as our server danced
between the tables. Dawn had a Thai Chai Tea. It looked like muddy river water
over ice in a glass, to me.
As we were finally getting up to leave, the server came
towards us one more time carrying a silver pitcher, beaded with condensation. “I
was going to offer you more water, but it looks like I’m too late,” she said.
And that’s when I saw the Southern Cross for the first time,
metaphorically speaking.
“I have been around
the world
Lookin’ for that woman
girl
Who knows that love
can endure
And you know it will.”
Sometime things just ring out in your ears. Maybe this
doesn’t make sense to you. It’s metaphorical. Of course much of all of this was
almost all in my imagination and not likely to be entirely what you will think
in any case from your reading. But that reality is no more. Only I am left to
tell my tale. But listen to me: sometime a look in someone’s eyes is all that
it takes. And maybe you’ve missed it a hundred times. And maybe sometimes you
see it.
She was just a friendly server in reality.
Metaphors are what happen when you take one real thing and
you make up something else.
The only real question is whether you believe that love can
endure. We are going to have to mind our metaphors for that to really happen.
The climate will be a-changin’ .
But as I said, my wife and I are thoroughly modern. We paid
the check with virtual plastic money. Our server had left the bill on the table
with a smile – not an emoticon. I am telling you that her smile was real. Her
voice was real - and friendly. She had seen us playing with our devices on the
table, taking tourist shots, before we got our food. She had suggested that the
Lulu’s sign just outside made a nice backdrop for a selfie. She would turn out
to be right about that too.
And if I hadn’t glanced down at the check, I never would
have learned that her name was Belinda. And now I know. She’s heading into a
world I will never see.
But not every detail matters. Nor does it matter that Alexander
von Humboldt’s ship was called the Pizarro. Or that my wife and I, as you might
know, were just sailing in our Prius across the state line for lunch and a little
sight-seeing.
“I have my ships and
my flags are all a-flying
She is all I have left
and music is her name.”
Alexander von Humboldt, CSN&Y and I will just be sharing
a few words as we write. The metaphors mean for each of us what they mean.
But there is this:
when you see the Southern Cross for the
first time
you understand now why you came this way…
I heartily suggest that you just go ahead and listen to the
CSN&Y YouTube for yourself if you wish. I don't know what else I can say.
