CIRCLES
My sister is leaving tomorrow. But only to come back to a whole new life in Denmark in a month. After 20 years of separation, she decided that she wanted to be with me. And Roskilde Hospital has made that possible. They offered her a job beginning in May, so now she wants to go home and quit her life there. As she is in a profound state of happiness she tells me that however practical she may find what the new job has to offer, she insists that what she got from me over the past two months is infinitely more valuable. I asked her: “what’s that?” And she said, “well, a set of threes, of course” referring to my ability to invent slogans, circulate old ones, or simply recognize or stretch bottom lines.
“Keep it simple.”
“When the time is right. . .”
“When the pupil is ready, the master will appear.”
Indeed, such lines were delivered orally either on a daily basis or have been formulated in writing on this very blog, which she reads religiously. I should have been pleased, I thought, yet I had a strange reaction. Clichés coming from her mouth sounded like the beginning of a self-help book. I said to her: “good lord, what happened to your thinking?” And she said: “I don’t need it if I keep it simple. Besides, I can always start thinking again, when the time is right, and if I can’t figure that one out, I’ll always have you to tell me when I’m ready for it.” Touché. Of course, what made the whole situation strange is its circularity. My sister ended up repeating what I myself repeat all the time, not only as an act in itself – repeat the repetition – but also what others have said. Oh, while I gave her a good lecture on the importance of realizing that before she can use ‘my’ lines she needs to really understand what they mean, I couldn’t help envying her innocent and prone enthusiasm - against reflection.
We went up to the Roskilde Dom to get absolution from the sins of repetition and definition, and to say farewell to some favorite ghosts. At my sister’s insistence to immortalize me photographically, I accepted her shooting me once in a circle outside the cathedral and once leaning against a tall tree. Thus standing between the circle and the phallus, I was thinking about how some things never end. Never ever. Not in a circle. Not in a continuum. As Gertrude Stein put it: “definition made a hand.” My sister felt the touch, and so did I.
“Keep it simple.”
“When the time is right. . .”
“When the pupil is ready, the master will appear.”
Indeed, such lines were delivered orally either on a daily basis or have been formulated in writing on this very blog, which she reads religiously. I should have been pleased, I thought, yet I had a strange reaction. Clichés coming from her mouth sounded like the beginning of a self-help book. I said to her: “good lord, what happened to your thinking?” And she said: “I don’t need it if I keep it simple. Besides, I can always start thinking again, when the time is right, and if I can’t figure that one out, I’ll always have you to tell me when I’m ready for it.” Touché. Of course, what made the whole situation strange is its circularity. My sister ended up repeating what I myself repeat all the time, not only as an act in itself – repeat the repetition – but also what others have said. Oh, while I gave her a good lecture on the importance of realizing that before she can use ‘my’ lines she needs to really understand what they mean, I couldn’t help envying her innocent and prone enthusiasm - against reflection.
We went up to the Roskilde Dom to get absolution from the sins of repetition and definition, and to say farewell to some favorite ghosts. At my sister’s insistence to immortalize me photographically, I accepted her shooting me once in a circle outside the cathedral and once leaning against a tall tree. Thus standing between the circle and the phallus, I was thinking about how some things never end. Never ever. Not in a circle. Not in a continuum. As Gertrude Stein put it: “definition made a hand.” My sister felt the touch, and so did I.
Comments
Now starts the true, and long, and spiritual journey of becoming able to pronounce rødgrødmedflødepå!
:)