Two paths through the yellow woods and you have to wonder, “what the hell are yellow woods?”

Have you ever had a vision, a glimpse of something that you have long since forgotten about that, at the time in your life when it happened, “grabbed you by the wrist and directs you where to go?” This is something that seems to be happening to me a lot lately.

There are two kinds. Firstly, there is the glimpse of a point in history where events converged, or didn’t converge to make you take a particular path. Looking back on it, you see that there was a choice there that was made, or perhaps an omission, but it didn’t seem directly and consciously pre-empted by you. Then there are the glimpses you have of a point in your life when you changed the path. You may not have known what path you were on and what path you were changing to, but you were deliberately making this determination. You stood on top of your own rusting kennel and screamed that you had found your identity. And then you forgot about the whole thing for years until a glimpse of it wacks you fair in the bottom of your soul. 

For me, the latter glimpse, the conscious choice, came as clear and as sudden as a car crash. Out of the blue I remembered a feeling, a decision from more than twenty years ago. Nothing much really, it was of being rushed past while I was walking down a corridor. The guy that rushed past me and I worked in a radio station in Toowoomba. I would have been about fifteen or sixteen at the time. I thought it was cool that I borrowed some of my qua from ‘Chris in the Morning’. I guess I still do. At the time, I never thought that he would have known the happenings of Cicely, but looking back on it now, I dare say he would have been well versed in it. 

He rushed past me down a corridor to yell at the guy on the mike. The image was one that changed me forever. Black, stovepipe slacks; pointed-toe, elastic sided boots; a button up, collared shirt about three sizes too big and shoulder length hair that looked like he’d passed out on a newly-met friend’s floor the night before (although now that I have hair like this, I realise how much time and effort go into making it look like it has no time and effort spent on it).

He was somewhere between the lead singer of Ratcat  with a slight sprinkling of the ostentatious class of  Vic Reeves. I wonder why it was that point in time which occurred to me so much as the point at which something asked me to choose. Why was it this guy? Why wasn’t it someone that looked like (and was) a doctor? Why wasn’t it someone that looked like (and was) a lawyer? Why was it this guy? Was it just a destined point, one of a few, but the one I have chosen? Was my life always to be swayed by this sort of qua? And if so, was I this person before I made this choice? Can one chose their identity or is it all laid out for them? As Uncle Jean Paul said, “Existence precedes essence.” 

Maybe, but then there is the problem of evil isn’t there? But I digress. 

I got a glimpse of him the other morning and the memory that came flooding back was so comforting and at the same time so alarming. He was rushing down the street, pointed boots and stovepipes swishing to an imaginary tune. His baggy collared shirt and messy hair were flowing back with the wind and the movement perfectly. 

Except for it wasn’t him. It was my own reflection in a shop window. He smiled at me. “I give you the uber-Michael. Michael is nothing if he is not a thing to be surpassed.” 

This story gets complicated when it’s mixed with another glimpse, but one of the former type: where a path was taken, but not chosen. A glimpse of sitting on a pile of wooden pallets, abandoned and lost, yet at the same time, fairly drunk and surrounded by people. .. girls. It’s not as clear to me now, but at some point I must have had an inkling of what was going on. I must have known that there was a foul plan in motion, there was a black moon. Whether that was due to the deliberate actions of another person or just due to time itself mocking my claimed autonomy, I am not sure. Yet I don’t think that this matters too much.  It wasn’t a conscious decision, but it changed me. It changed the way I acted around people that I don’t give the time of day to. I started to give them the time of day, my day. I started to allow, even need a smile from a person incapable of smiling. I asked for my needs to be met from people who should not know how to withhold these needs. 

But I think I place too much intelligence and foresight into my being at that point. There are three possible outcomes to that situation. There is what happened, there is me falling for the trap and then there is me realising the trap, getting all snooty and leaving in disgust. The problem with this situation and its finite outcomes : it took away any ability I had to be me. It took away my ability to rush past myself in pointed boots and a baggy shirt. Over the years since, this ability was further removed from me, until just recently when I braved the heights of my rusty kennel and screamed, “I am here, and hang the expense. “ This is made all the more obvious by playing out the potential other timelines. Looking back on where I was at the time, what happened just afterwards and with whom, it would have worked out perfectly in any event, providing I had the ability to walk past myself. I lost that for a while. I want it back. I will myself to become that which is worthy of being surpassed again. 

This post’s groovy, identity-seeking quotes: 

“You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” Albert Einstein. 

“Cogito Ergo Sum is the thoughts of a person who has never had a decent toothache.”