RANDOM MEANDER

Does random imply meander, or meander imply randomness? Are events random as we meander through our day?

Like Friday, November 13th. Adolph took a bus to return a pair of shoes, couldn’t find the store, and came back home with the shoes. I biked over two miles to pick up some flyers, the flyers weren’t there, and I came home without them. Adolph and I rushed to the bus stop, arrived long before the number #15 was due, waited, and waited, more and more people waited with us, the bus never came.

The first week in November I cut through the basement of the Shorewood Library, saw my friend Elizabeth was in her office, and stopped by to say hello. At that particular moment she and Susan Kelley were connecting volunteers and seniors for a one-morning lawn clean-up project. The end result: On Saturday, November 7th, almost a dozen volunteers swooped into our yard, raked our leaves, cut down our plants, trimmed our one shrub, put away our rain barrel and hose, did everything that would have taken me days to do in about an hour!

And so it goes. Sometimes we step where we want to, sometimes we just step into it. On Friday the 13th, the missing bus had been in an accident. Luckily the next bus came on time. Going home from the Portrait Gallery reception, just as we got to the bus stop on Buffalo and Water, Josie Osborne walked by and offered us a ride.

Here’s a poem I once wrote which plays around with random meandering:
 

MeAndeRing Around
     And a Ring Around
Me

Women’s issues are men’s issues,
For what touches us touches them,
Which is besides the point,
Though I don’t know what point
I was just trying to think of a title
And women’s issues popped in,
But sounded way too dry,
Until I thought that issue, singular, means children,
Issue, singular, means children,
Women’s issue are men’s issue.
Your issue ish you, and somebody else,
Your issue issue, issue ish you, issue ish you
Issue ish-shoe-ish, shoe-ish, shoe-ish
The first thing you see is the shoe.
That may be how I perceive myself,
Or perhaps that’s how I see you.
Issue shoe-ish issue you wish, issue wish you,
Issue wish you, issue kiss you, issue ka-choo
Do you wish you had a tissue
Issue you wish issue wish you, issue dish you
Do you wish you, had no dish you, had to wash?
Issue wish you, issue kish you, issue mish you
I’d mish you if you went away.

Am I being silly, words willy-nilly
With no hint of what I’m trying to say
Or perhaps you miss the issue, do you miss the issue
The issue I’m dealing with is play,
For play means feeling free
To think in any way
Instead of stepping into footprints already made,
Instead of treading where someone else has played.

Where does it lead? Where does it lead?
Must it lead somewhere?
Must every path have a destination
Isn't it worth the wear on soles
Simply to pass through the scenery?

Is life random
As we run dumb through it
Born with the right-wrong gene line
In the right-wrong place time
Is life random
As we run-dumb-dumb run-dumb-dumb run-dumb-dumb through?
What is it that sticks these words
Into my early morning head?
An extra twinge of randomness
That leads them to my bed?
Will tomorrow tell me what I thought today
Or will randomness take even this away?

It's the times it’s the times it’s the New York Times,
Too much news addles even calm minds.
I'm not in the Balkans nor in Palestine
Nor in a crack house nor a bread line
I'm not a terrorist nor Maoist
Not a couch potato nor Taoist
And I’m very honest, more or less sound of body, sane of mind
Though I am getting older all the time,
Though I am getting older all the time

Where did it go, where did it go?
That’s the issue issue issue
That’s what we’d like to know
Where did it where did it where did it go?

Musing on the past
We can't change what was
Can't change what was
Can merely ask why
So we fiddle with the why's
Fiddle with the why's
To grow wise before we die
We hope the more we fiddle
The less we'll play out of tune.

Copyright: Suzanne Rosenblatt, 1995