Our eyes, normally half-lidded, are jolted open when something, some stray thing, comes at us from outside. Such that we find it necessary to decide. This has been the case following the messages, written on folded slips of paper, that have appeared in the crack beneath the door. And in the mailbox downstairs. And between the pages of books we are reading.
Is it not strange indeed, that we now find ourselves traveling through a country landscape after such a long time — an era, almost — webbed with unpaved roads, with intersections and decisions to be made about where to turn next, troubling with which are the landmarks that guide our way, and which are spurious, and where to stop, and the unaccustomed burden of going someplace in particular, to arrive at an agreed-upon time so that a piece of business may be transacted? All these circumstances, taken together, force us to acknowledge that we have been called back to the same old business we did with father.We are surprised to find ourselves somewhere other than in a chair or in our bed, somewhere other than in our home, whichever home that happens to be at the time, as every few years, or months, it might be, we pick up and move.
We don’t like to move, not at all, but every so often some circumstance provokes us, more often if we haven’t chosen the place carefully. Or it’s the luck of the draw, as we don’t like to choose which place, either, but it is sufficient that one becomes available, in times there is no one to care for but ourselves. But whether there is truly no one has become doubtful, once again, as in the back of our mind we seem to remember there is a family, or a group of individuals we may have forgotten, to whom we are still attached — by their design, we suspect, we do not think it was ours — unless that was the best arrangement available. When picking among arrangements we think there is always the best one, and the best one is always the one we do not choose, but move into, or are invited into, so that movement into the arrangement is smooth and the transition is seamless. Do they that have done the inviting suspect this is the case? That we have not chosen them in the usual way, singling them out? But rather, unaware, they have simply moved over to accommodate us, as many a person will do almost without thinking, entirely without, to allow them a bit of space? As for a stranger on a park bench, or on the subway. One moves over, doesn’t one, to make a little room, as long as one is not putting oneself to too much trouble?
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