Field of Prose

Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field. I'll meet you there. – Rumi

Lines that are parallel meet at infinity. – Euclid

As I drive up to the solitary man holding the stop sign, no one else is in site, though he holds a receiver up to his ear. My initial judgment is that he was possibly from a group of incarcerated road workers. Should I be worried? I don't see a reason. He spits and moves his hands, directing me to straighten my infamously sloppy parking job. Then, when I get it done good enough, he turns with his back to me as if to show off his “inmate” shirt just in case I had not caught on. I sit wondering about this unshaven man with long red hair until finally I hear him say into the receiver, “I'm sending one through.”

The compound word that comes to mind for him is one I often use to describe myself: “bad ass.” And as I drive down this country road, I am glad he gets this independent job with such a lovely view of Joe Pie Weed and Daisies; and I am glad I didn't get too much on his bad side.

Like Sisyphus, I am hauling rocks up a hill. But unlike Sisyphus, I find a wheel barrow that makes my life a whole lot easier. My grandnephew Jeremiah, who due to a sister almost fifty is a couple years older than me, is with me. We take breaks every half hour or so or when I get tired or too much sun.

When we talk, the work gets much faster, or rather I go longer between our breaks and the less lazy I feel because the more I enjoy the work. Jeremiah has been reading about evolution, which I like to talk more in detail. Then I say one of my most random comments: “I wonder what would the world be like if there were two suns?” And we pause in the field trying to bring the concept to life. Wiping my brow, I am, glad for a moment that we only have to deal with the heat and light from one sun. Jeremiah starts talking about infinity, a concept I loved in high school Calculus but haven't done much with since. “I wonder... I mean... how can you be sure there is infinity?” I ask. “I mean when you criticized evolution scientists you sounded like you didn't believe scientists should be certain of anything.” It was true, Jeremiah had been saying certainty was the downfall of the scientific method. “I believe in uncertainty as a fundamental principle of science,” he said. But I also have thought a lot about the mathematical concepts of infinity, negative infinity, zero, one and negative one, and I am pretty sure I believe in infinity and negative infinity too.”

I suppose I was just trying to challenge contradiction just in case. I let him know I am on the same page and we go back to talking about this unusual ground between fantastical and realistic worlds with dual suns, infinity and negative infinity, and the evolution of flight and feathers. Under this glaring sun I basked in the theoretical promised land of science that I walked away from taking English in college instead of math and science. Mathematics was always my best subject growing up until I tested out of it in college. Many times I crave Calculus and the frame of mind it gave me in high school.

We break from work under the shadow of oak and tulip trees. I sit beside a pile of caked horse dung, Jeremiah on a big, flat rock I had been thinking of gathering for our job. We are quiet for some time, drinking our water, then Jeremiah asks me if I hear the tapping sound through the woods and by the road. I tell him I do, and he asks who I think is making the noise. “I think it is that inmate and his one peg leg.” I kid him. Jerry thinks it's a man hammering a stake into the ground.

The intellectual world of classic thinkers and artists is becoming a thing of the past. People are atrophying their minds in front of computers with Facebook. I put my foot down and quit using Facebook a month ago and my life has been much better since. The back pain that plagued me for years disappeared almost overnight. My best explanation is it happened because I hunched over the computer so much less now without the social networking nusance.

Procrastination is a waste of time, quite literally. In this magical, infinite world, in this infinite universe, the construct of our life-time is is one thing that is so finite we can control exactly what we do with it. Every step has consequences on us and our world. There is no one right way. But procrastinating is wimping out at every hypothetical crossroads of way.