distance

I have to pause and ponder the concept of distance. It’s an idea whose time has gone. I live in a time and a place that renders distance to within inches of meaninglessness. My thoughts, words and deeds travel at light speeds. They fly along the eight-fold wavicle path to the receiver’s ear, eye, mind. (FYI: Particles and waves belong in the dustbin along with flat-earth theory, kids.)

My thoughts are anytime, anywhere, unlimited night and weekend thoughts. I can rollover my thoughts to the next emotional cycle. And, God, have I ever been emotional lately. The tears just burst in, unwelcome, like Immigration at a Mexican restaurant. They stun me like a fly in my soup.

I’m doing housework and then the crying fits start. I don’t pretend to understand it. All I know is that my heart is flying at half-mast. And my meme playground has been vandalized. Somebody broke in and bashed my jungle gym. Ripped up the swings. Wiped out the climbing wall. Unhinged the sandbox. Tore down the sandcastles that I'd built at low thought tide.

I have to smile at the thought of sandcastles. I'm driving. City lights blur by and I have "Papa don't Preach" on the radio, playing quietly. Meanwhile, I hear half of a phone conversation...

"Hello? Oh -- Sorry. Can’t take your call right now. I’ve got the press on the other line -- Vanity Fair is demanding a statement from Mr. Brady…”

That’s what Todd, my valued social secretary, said when my phone rang in the car last night. He knows I hate to drive and I absolutely can’t talk on the phone in the car. (I can hardly talk to the passenger without getting lost or running a light.)

Thank God for his frivolity. I never knew I’d need his Baptist punch-drunk sense of zany so much. But I need levity like air these days. I guess it’s just the war on terror, the lightening storms of rush, the midterms and the end-of-year paperwork that have gotten me stressed out.

These are the days when my thoughts are not my own. And I want to/need to/have to/ share them so that I won’t feel so alone. Sometimes, when it’s storming outside and in, when the weather channel announces a severe thunderstorm warning for my synapses… that is when I think that distance does matter. And my thoughts, words and deeds need to take shape in the form of a listener’s smiles.

Or frowns.

Or even tears, that flow in sympathy with the memes that bind.

The George Jetson videophones inhabit kitchen countertops and computer monitors. But you know what? They just don’t do us justice. We are creatures that require the added touch and smell with our palette of sight and sound.

And so far, the dance of electrons cannot do justice to us. Presence cannot be replicated. I need that presence to remind me of the Big Ideas, the definitions that matter: Hands are for holding and earlobes for nibbling. Foreheads are for furrowing. Temples are for butterfly kisses. Eyes are for sparkling... not tearing up, despite the distance that divides.