Shift happens
I was watching the movie Dark City the other day — truly it merits its own entry, in which I’ll write on the film by recycling good chunks of Roger Ebert’s erudite audio commentary overlaid on the special edition DVD. I thought of it just now not because of its startling visual homagery to Metropolis or of its timeliness – or untimeliness, as the anachronisms are ever-present – but because I wanted to admit something about myself, which is, how I cope with change.
And the short answer is: moving furniture around.
I’m sure it stems partially from the habit I’ve been in since late 1999 (spanning two millennia), which is, having a new place to live every year. A new address, that is – indeed, I moved every semester, between school and home, school and home, then a new dorm and home, a new dorm and home…
Then I started tackling Manhattan and its surrounding counties – I’ve got Westchester and Queens on my list, Manhattan itself, I work in Brooklyn (and terrible hours, thus I may as well claim residence there). Staten Island – I’ve driven through it to Great Adventure, which is good enough.
My mailing address shuffle spins out of the moving of the furniture, which when it comes down to it, is the difference between a bed facing north-south and east-west, or something equally minimal. But is it minimal? With that right turn, you’re 90 degrees of your course, and just 90 more degrees in the same direction from turning your whole life around.
A change in style is a change in subject. An office worker once wrote that. He was also a poet, but Wallace Stevens also spent some time in an office. And I’ll misquote him if I must, but I’ll go ahead and agree with Mr. Stevens when he laid out the idea that things really aren’t necessarily important in and of themselves, but as they may form the fulcrum on which the rest of perception balances, then yes, they sure as hell are important. So if I occupy a desk closer to the door, and I turn that desk 90 degrees to look people in the eye and not surreptitiously over the shoulder, like I’m hiding something (not least of all my power), tell me the littlest things don’t make the biggest differences. Different may just be different enough. It’s a double bull from a single. A butterfly’s wingflap. Saying yes instead of no, doing anything instead of nothing. Letting go.
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