Too Many Lines.

Too Many Lines.

By C.L.E Webster

I have come to the conclusion that the only book that can contain my thoughts is a small hardy journal with no lines. Until I lost mine, I didn’t realise how inadequate other journals are.

I searched for a replacement at the shops today and couldn’t find one. It began to feel like a metaphor for my life.

Store after store I asked, "do you have a journal with no lines?"

"No," said the cashier. "Why would anyone want a journal with no lines? Do you draw?"

I just shook my head and said nothing.

I don't need it to draw in, I need it to think into.

"No," says the next storekeeper "…but we have blank scrapbooks,"

"No, thanks," I say politely.

My thoughts aren’t scraps, they're treasures!

"No," says the last cashier, a young teen, she seems a touch annoyed by the question. "People only want the ones with lines, we don't stock the kind you’re after.”

"Thanks anyway," I say.

I AM a person who wants a journal with no lines! If "people" don't want books with no lines, what does that say about me? Am I not “people”? Does that bother me or thrill me? Do I want to want lines in my notebooks?

Either way, it feels lonely...

The faithful, past keeper of the contents of my mind was an A5 journal bound in black leather. The sturdy elastic attached to the back cover could be slung over the front. Thus achieving for itself a sense of protection. Useful for the occasions when it lay intermittently forgotten. Waiting in the wastelands of my groceries or car footwell. Once it even had to cling for its life to the roof of the car travelling 84 kilometres an hour in an 80 zone. It survived.

You see, it needed to be ready to come with me wherever I went. And just in case I was to be stuck down with an idea—a pen I have great need of too.

A pen can be borrowed—stolen even—quite by accident of course...

Especially if one's mind is suddenly overflowing with a world, 200 years in the future where oysters are extinct, every human being is genetically engineered, and every moral line in the world today has been blurred beyond recognition. One would be in a bit of a pinch then. Yes, you could pinch a pen.

A journal with no lines, however, must be ready at all times. As much as the size of my handbag depends on it, so do I.

How could I forget about my journal, the keeper of my thoughts? Simply enough. Women often forget themselves all together amidst the pace of things.

Some days I’m like an indestructible diamond, with infinite facets. Each one polished to perfection, each one reflecting its own universe. Sometimes, I’m not like that at all.

One of those facets is the true one. The one that will echo through eternity. That surface can only be forgotten or neglected for a little while before life starts to feel like a lie.

My truest face is that of a being who compulsively pulls forth from her mind, adventures, truths and observations on life, that are an escape, a comfort or a curiosity to others. My imagination is full of good shit.

Truth be told, when I write, I feel a deep peace that I am polishing the surface, through which the future will see both the story of my life and God's hand in it. It is easier than you'd think to forget something that important.

Out of the ether of my thoughts—and the unlimited universes within—my arms are sometimes full of groceries. So I have to shut the door of the wardrobe, return to my dimension, re-assimilate my mind. I can’t stay there too long or I’d be lost, in entirely other ways. I have, after all, other faces. Other very important things to do.

Right at this moment, three of my four children cling to my clothing as we leave the shops and cross the car park. With my only spare finger, I grip the lifeforce of my fourth child. My youngest. He is three.

I hold onto him as though his destiny and the ever-reaching face of his eternity depends on it. I think of all the incredible power held by that small length of flesh and bone—he who could grow up to save the world. Better still, he could grow up to be a man of honour. I’m all too aware that those two destinies aren’t very likely to be the same thing.

I feel privileged to be burdened with everything I need to allow him to proceed. The lifeforce of a woman breathing the fragile flame of his life into a fire. I wonder for a moment if his fire will bring light and warmth or if it will destroy. Then he says, “Mum can I please have a mandarin?” After that, for the next moment, all I can think of is how proud I am. You see, he can now peel a mandarin all by himself.

My mind exists, at that moment outside of the constraints of time. I can see the past, the future and the present all at once. There are parallel dimensions for each child in my thoughts.

I used to be able to hold that child in one hand, pressed against my breast. His mind was a pure mystery to me then. Now we speak of many things. Like Batman and the correct use of toilet paper.

As for the future, we will love each other forever, even when we hate each other, for I will always be part of him—and he me.

I will endeavour to protect him from that car and the next. From the unpleasant bite of the wind and the cold, or his thoughts. I will do it to teach him to do the same for others. I can think of these things, of each child, within the same span of that parallel moment. Later, I likely won't recall what I thought about them at all. The thoughts will be compressed back into feelings, true love and unfaltering hope.

For now, we will march together. I can only grip the smallest with my smallest finger and the others have to settle for a fist full of my clothes. Still, we are one entity. Our destiny combined. Intertwined and knotted together by love and stern, lifesaving words of deep truth.

Stop. Look. Listen. Love one another. Keep walking.

I love them, but also, while I’m with them like this, a part of me is locked away.

I mustn’t leave it too long or it will start to wither. And when that happens it hurts all of us. I shudder to think what would become of them if I let it die altogether. Would they look at me and see a gaping hole where my overwhelming love for them used to be?

If I leave that part of myself too long, I have to go and find it in the dark. You can forget who you are in the darkness. There, in the cold shadows, any lying thing can come along and try to trick you. Persuading you to believe its lies. When you look at the world a bit too closely, you’ll see that people not knowing who they really are, is probably the main reason it’s so screwed up. Identity is both digitally and naturally distorted by whatever force is the truest opposite of love.

There I go again. Apparently, I left the wardrobe door open a crack.

I realise with a sinking feeling of deep hopelessness, that my keys are in the bottom of one of the grocery bags—that I am not Vishnu, I have no extra arms. I also haven’t mastered telekinesis yet. Frankly, I’ve not had the time to even try. I will have to achieve the impossible again. Perhaps for the eleventh time today—I know you know what I mean.

Hiding in the bottom of the green reusable, but I fear not recyclable shopping bag, I spot my keys. Beside them to my great joy, I find my lost journal waiting faithfully. For now, I must settle for using magic to somehow lure my car keys into a spare hand—that I don’t have. Later, when I have the available digits, I will hold that old book gratefully in my hands. A little damp from its close proximity to the milk. Its comforting presence can turn poison into fresh air for myself and those around me. It’s only got a few blank pages left, but it still has the actual power to stave off proper madness.

It’s perfect as it is. The marks of its harrowing life exhibited on the leather. Holding itself defensively together, even when it’s lost or forgotten. No lines constraining all the thoughts inside it. Yes, if I were an object, this would be it. This secretly powerful, innocuous little thing...

Free, to hold thoughts that are free. With a treasured reason for existence. Thriving regardless, in a world that has too many lines.