Juxtaposition

I obviously have not been up to the task of writing here very often of late. As it were, I have been temporarily and voluntarily evicted from my bedroom by my sister and her husband visiting. What I have to use as a desk is just a TV dinner tray and my old room is infamous for being inhospitable climatically. Not to mention the chores and tasks I have had to occupy me lately, I have been distracted.

This is in the vein of a series of meditations I consider on my rides home. Late nights, weariness, wind against one's face, the flash of lightning bugs, the whir of engines made distant by trees, the shear sense of movement, of velocity all provide a fantastic vantage upon not only the recently passed hours, but on the past months and years. Often, I am struck with the desire to write when I get home, but the impetus to satisfy hunger, thirst, cleanliness, and fatigue can be too much when one is undercommitted, the thoughts inadequately formed. All the same, I want to make an attempt now.

Being home--my mother's house, Lincoln, Nebraska, and in the company of old friends and acquaintances--has given me a different and decidedly convoluted perspective on place. In a very real way, I see myself as a time traveler, revisiting a life, place, time, or people (likely some synthesis of those) that has become foreign despite its familiarity. Changed hair colors and styles, new glasses, different fashion styles, facial hair come or gone, new tattoos; these all obscure the frustrating reality that I am back somewhere I associate strongly with being past, being gone. I am confronted with this potent juxtaposition of the old with the current.

Chatting outside the Bourbon Theater with Mr. Chris Bowling--amongst others, but Bowling himself is a powerful composition of past and present characteristics--he pointed out a number of passers-by, some of whom were old classmates or acquaintances. Most of those I think of as friends were inside at just that moment, though Miss Allison G. and Miss Paige N. did join us for a spell here and there. Well, what I mean to say is that Mr. Bowling is an acquaintance, a well-established acquaintance but distinctly not a personal friend. This is of no insult to Mr. Bowling, only that our rapport has been conversational when our paths cross and only of late; when it comes to high school, we hardly spoke at all. Now, I can recognize in him and in myself a much greater self-assurance, a certainty of self that definitely manifests in how we handle ourselves around others. In a way, Mr. Bowling's success is very satisfying to behold simply because of his mostly shed discomfort. Nevertheless, his body language, eye contact, jittery speech all link him to that person he was but no longer exactly is; that is, I have no doubt that he remains Chris Bowling despite him no longer being the person I used to think of as Chris Bowling.

What I mean to get at is my description of Mr. Bowling is apt for my experience in Lincoln overall. Lincoln is a place I cannot help but treasure, but I left it eagerly because of the despondence I felt over my senior year in high school. Emotionally and physically distant friends, playful but condescending euphemisms, exhausting the fruits of the Lincoln Public Schools, and getting the bug of exploration and travel provided ample preparation if not downright encouragement for leaving. With my return, which has been a frustratingly slow but clearly educational submersion, I must resolve this peculiar tension between a moment in my personal history I wanted to leave and a present I want to understand and develop.

Which does not exactly leave me with a great deal of understanding. If anything, and rather appropriately, I feel as if I am revisiting old epiphanies, old understandings, but with my new vantage. It is as if I have uncovered a collection of old coins, collected in one's youth, and forgotten; upon their rediscovery, not only are they remembered vividly, but I finally flip them over to see them in new ways. This novelty of old things is not perfect newness, but rather heavily accented with the recognition of things of the past.

I do not want to demean those people, those experiences that are perfectly new to me--my friendships with Misses Paige and Allison are part of that lovely novelty. What I want to articulate is that I have made an especial attempt to explore Lincoln in ways that any city makes me uncomfortable. Later nights, more drinks in different locales, conversations with and proffering drinks to strangers, and other activities have never been my cup of tea. In fact, the best nights are still those long-lived evenings with tea or wine or beer with friends in a warm space, music floating scent-like in the air, discussing philosophies or politics or ourselves; those are the places I feel closest to other people, to knowing them in that ineffably private way. All the same, I ought to practice means of developing those sorts of connections and similar ones with strangers and acquaintances, especially with my rapidly approaching move.

I have been unable to exactly articulate the synthetic reality of oldness and newness that I recognize all over me in Lincoln. It is a richly textural and often bizarrely satisfying experience. Sometimes it is painfully distancing, divorcing me from the moment in a way similar to and rarely directly associated with my own negative sensations when I experience deja vu. This juxtaposition is any many ways a grand deja vu; I am experiencing what has come and gone in a new way that neither solidifies the present nor affirms my past, but somehow cuts between those two potentials. It is neither a delight nor a disparagement, but almost something frustratingly neutral and highly uninterpretable.