Lines Do Not Exist

Last week, I paid a visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with my friend Timmy.  As we wandered aimlessly around (but careful to avoid the Asian Art section, where I usually start and then get terribly lost and end up spending the whole day), we stumbled upon the exhibition "Une Cite Moderne: Drawings by Robert Mallet-Stevens, architect."

Immediately my pace slowed as I meandered to one drawing and slowly worked my way around the room, stopping to ponder the sociological implications of Mallet-Stevens' designs. (I love architecture.)

 Tim, an artist, appeared over my shoulder and commented something about lines.

"Tell me more," I implored.

"Lines do not exist," he stated, as if it were the simplest of observations.


Another exhibition I was hoping to see (and we did) was one featuring MN artists.  Here's a review.  I was really looking forward to the movie one, to the opportunity to watch people cross the line from suspension of disbelief to return to reality.  But I was disappointed.  People just got up, chatted a little but incoherently, and meandered out of the theaters.  No extraordinary threshold-crossing.


Lines do not exist.

familiar roads

I have a friend who loves music.  And I enjoy watching music wash over him, how it changes his expression.  Even listening to what he deems "not good" music, I watch his brow slightly furrow as he contemplates each piece of a song's musical puzzle.  After careful inspection, he eases into the mysterious relationship between harmony, melody, dynamics, lyrics, and reality.  Now his shoulders slacken, the corners of his eyes droop and we both know he is awash in a Greater Than.  As he descends into this sub-reality, the Spirit in the music draws his Spirit out of him.  Like particles of limestone washing into the Mississippi River, I see elements of his self suspended in the air, mingling with that which is Greater Than.  Somewhere in that dance, his soul alights.  It soars.

When he catches me staring at him (which I could do for hours), he cocks his head to the right and raises his left eyebrow, wondering at his return to this extraordinarily grounded planet.

It is in the presence of music that he loses himself in order to find himself.  For his sake, I wish he could stay there.

This is what long distance cycling is to me.  I embark on a trip hesitantly, worrying that if I lose myself, I might never come back.

In what or where do you lose yourself?  Do you find yourself there?

Just Know

I once encountered the following closing line of a book:

"Things will be alright.

Sometimes you just know."

And despite a mediocre story, I pondered that last line in my heart, allowing its peace to pervade my soul.

Prayer is fickle.  Sometimes I think, God is fickle.

But silence is golden.

In the silence, I learn to trust.  I straddle my bike and I know to go straight, not to turn.  When I pause on a bridge over the Mississippi River, clarity of character shines like the sunlight glinting off the water.  I sit in church and I hear God say, "Go. Go."

Sometimes, I just know.  I need to trust myself.

...And then

for Holly.


...And then I came to the town of Little York, Illinois.


On the morning of the seventh day of my solo bike trip, a clap of thunder shook the house of my accomplished hosts:

and jolted me from 12 hours of sleep.  Gripping the bed beneath me and the reality of the storm above, I shrugged, rolled over, and fell back asleep.  When I awoke two hours later on the banks of the misty Mississippi River,

I quietly maneuvered through the house, preparing four slices of peanut butter toast for breakfast before slipping out the back door and mounting my beloved bike.  

I rode with the ferocity of my impassioned six-year-old self.  Whenever this indescribable, undeniable emotion overtook my entire self and my only imaginable response was: run (in this case, ride) away, I would rip a banana from the bunch on the kitchen counter with a grand flourish of my arm, announce to my mother and anybody within earshot, "I am running away! I'm going to live in a houseboat on the Mississippi River with Kagney (my then-future husband)!"  I remember repeatedly storming out the front door of our house, knowing it faced east, the general direction of my destination, but when confronted with the blackness of Kansas' small-town nighttime sky, I would slink around to the back of the house, hide alongside the tornado cellar door, unpeel and eat my banana slowly before determining I'd been absent long enough to return with some dignity intact.

I took refuge under the dense, ominous clouds as I rode the bike trail into the Quad Cities and through the Quad Cities.  When the trail ended, it just ended.  I was lost!  As I rode, though, I noticed I was on US Highway 67 SOUTH.  "Well, at least I'm going south," I thought, so I followed it.               

It took me through Viola, IL, where I had lunch.  About ten miles beyond that it veered to the left while a state highway continued straight.  Not knowing which to take, or where I was in the state, I called my dad.  As I drew the map he described in my head, revulsion grew up within my gut.  No maps.  This, inexplicably, was one of the two rules I'd set for myself for this trip.  60 miles a day, minimum. No maps.  And so, as I weighed in my mind the option to veer left and head toward the bigger dot on my dad's map, I rudely excused myself from our conversation and stood at the juncture and silently apologized for bringing maps into this.  I'd pedaled maniacally on frazzled nerves much of the day.  In my gut, as I erased my mental map, I knew what to do.  Before I could act, however, I needed to know  to the core of my being, that I trusted myself.  I stood, straddling my bike frame, at the junction of US-67 S & state highway 135 for many minutes until I stopped hoping for a local truck driver to notice my confusion, take pity, and stop to just. tell. me. where to go.

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;"

Without a doubt, I knew I was making the right decision, the decision that went against all advice I'd gotten and all I would potentially get.

"Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same"

After about 12 more miles, I came to a town called Little York.  Just outside the town limits, County Hwy 3 offered yet another option.  This, I was sure, would take me west and back toward the River.  Again, I stood.  I could see the sign welcoming me to:

Little York

Pop. 300

not 300 feet ahead.  While "no maps" was a rule designated specially for this trip, I always travel, per my grandfather's example, "no back-tracking."  If I rode into Little York then changed my mind, would that extra 300 feet become 30 extra miles?  Look. Look.  Foot to pedal. Ride.

"What will I say when I get there?" I wondered, hoping there'd be a staffed destination in town, or someone out mowing their lawn, whom I could ask for directions.  I had no particular destination for the night and I honestly knew not from whence I'd come.  "Where in the grand scheme of the universe am I?" I wondered, realizing that my lonely self was smaller than the speck of ink that demarcated Little York, population 300's location on the map of Illinois, a speck that would never exist on a US or world map.  I am tiny.

"Excuse me," I raised my youngest-child/puppy-dog eyes to the clerk at the post office, "Could you tell me where I am in the grand scheme of the universe?"

"You're in Little York, Illinois."

Then she and I looked at a map together.  She told me how to get over to the River, where there were some state campgrounds.  If I happened upon a farmhouse fitting the exact description of hers, I was welcome to stop in for food and sleep there, though her son did have  a Little League game that evening, so she might not be home.  Look for the truck out front.

I back-tracked to County Road 3, turned left, and rode without stopping for the rest of the day, to an abandoned campground where I pitched my tent and penned in my journal:

"I am where I should be.  I'm a little concerned it's going to storm tonight.  It's been very windy all day, and cloudy.  I'd call this weather temperamental."

The wind picked up speed, howling through my tent as it caused my rain fly to shudder. I stretched my limbs in every direction, hoping my weight would keep the corners from tearing out of the ground and into the air.  

"SHhhheewwww, shheww, Shhewwww," the wind blew.  My eyes, unable to see much, darted from side-to-side as I wracked my brain for distracting thoughts. 

I heard my voice before I realized my mouth was open and speaking, "God, please don't let it storm tonight."   

"SHhhheewwww, shheww, Shhewwww," the wind blew.  

Pound pound pound pound pound pound pound, hail fell upon the fly.  In the dark and in the midst of my continuous prayer, "God, please call this storm," I managed to pack up my belongings into my panniers.  I unzipped the bottom foot of my sleeping bag so my feet were free to run when I heard the tornado siren, 

"WEEewwwweEEEWWWwweEEwww."

I spent the night in a cement-block outhouse.

Pray-er

I'm not a pray-er.  It feels awkward to me. It feels awkward to me to pray, to listen to others pray, to have others offer to pray for me.  Except for my niece, who prays diligently at every mealtime, snack time, and whenever she serves plastic food on plastic plates, to the tune of "Frere Jacques:"

God our Father

God our Father

Once again

Once again

We bow our heads and thank you

We bow our heads and thank you

God our men

God our men

In this case, I crack up each and every time, despite my best efforts to remain politely stoic.

Vignette 1:

This spring I had a couple dates with a boy despite my suffering from chronic migraines.  I liked being with him because unlike my friends, he didn't yet know about my constant pain and when I was with him I could pretend I was normal again; I didn't have to answer the question, "How are you feeling NOW?" several times per conversation nor suffer through a newly developed theory or suggestion of a cure.  I could smile and nod and dance and hold hands as if the thunderstorm raging inside my head had never begun.

One morning after an episode so intense I could no longer conceal my pain, he asked if I'd ever prayed about it.

"No."

Then, over the breakfast table, he held my hands, palms together, between his and showed me how: "God, please take away Emily's migraines."

Vignette 2:

Once upon a time there was a group of friends.  Two of them were struggling financially.  Another, a godly man, offered, "I'll pray about it."

I got up and stormed out of the room to do dishes.  Another of the friends, an intuitive young man, followed.  He stood silently waiting for me to berate blind faith until I rewarded his patience.  "He shouldn't say things like that!  He shouldn't offer to pray or offer assurance of God's provision unless HE is willing to take part in solving the problem, to be an agent of the answered prayer!"

The next day, the two friends who were struggling each found  a $200 check in their mailboxes.