(no subject)

:
I received a squeeze on my arm.

It is a contact that both moves in the personal space but also attempts no forward intimacy. It is the motion one uses to place someone on the stage at the correct mark. It is a direction. It moves the target away, it puts them in their place.

The squeeze was a courtesy.  It was not the clout of a glove across the face, but there was a fleeting moment where I thought it was -- an attention in the negative sense, a challenge demanding a response, red in tooth and claw.  The following epiphany came quickly, wise and maternal, the inner voice that chilled my blood and counseled my heart that we had been served a kindness.  One that I had served others, and that the responsible thing would be to play by the rules.  And that, after all, was and is what I am -- one who obeys rules.

While there are rules of engagement, it is not really a game. It is not about winning and losing. It is certainly not about rematches. Even now, I can hear the demon laughing at me. "You keep score?"

Am I the finishing-school girl who takes sly sips from the parent's liquor cabinet, when others are doing lines in discotheque bathrooms? Am I the co-ed with the second-hand high at the outdoor concert sponsored by cola manufacturers, when others are applying dots directly to their labia in the dark woods outside the rave? Am I the cautious spinster chasing the true adventurers? Is it because I want to be them? Or do I want to live through them?

As my generation moves onwards to the great night, a younger one walks in our shadow. Their squabbles, their conflict, their duels and their wars -- they stumble over the same obstacles that we did. When they champ at the bit and snort in fury, it is my impulse to grab at the reigns and lead them. But is that my place? The handler is more likely to get kicked. I do so envy their passion, so untempered by experience, so unfettered by reason.  I am a poor epicurean, for envying them.

Their mountains are higher, their valleys are lower. I walk in a flat place. 

I look at the irregular lines on the horizon.