Edvard Munch: Encounter in Space
Original Language Title: Møte i verdensrommet
Original Language Title: Begegnung im Weltall
Former Title: Meeting in Space
(1898-1899)

"It’s the purpose to which we are blind that determines what we’ll leave behind."

Meeting Mitzi during that GWU lecture series was just one of the consequential ChanceEncounters I experienced while Exiled. It seemed as though one of the purposes of being Exiled was to stir up the old routine to increase the likelihood of ChanceEncounters occurring. I've long considered them just the sort of magic this world relies upon, for formal channels seem far too narrow to produce sufficiently substantial connections. However much the matchmakers might insist on the importance of formal introductions, informal ones most often suffice. Of course, they lack the sense that anything of substance might be brewing. They're notoriously easy to miss, even if one's paying close attention. I suspect that a certain inconvenience improves these outcomes. They happen through a fog of annoyance. They happen to us. How fortunate for us and the world when we notice.

The Muse was never fully satisfied that I had not become a hermit while we were Exiled. My introversion remains somewhat mysterious to her far more extroverted self, and she, like everyone else, toils to create a world in her own image. She emplored me to attend a TED talk. She said it would get me out into the world, reminding me that nothing can happen unless and until I engage 'out there.’ I felt ambivalent, and not just because I'd grown to distrust the slickly produced presentations common to the form. Each seemed another All Ya Gotta Do lesson in something. Whatever complicated subject might be presented, the high production would reduce it to a simple checklist and a memorable meme. I know, as you know, that this world does not very often work this way and that such presentations are about as authentic and relevant as so-called Reality Television. It's high performance with perhaps more entertainment built in than information: Infotainment, as one past client referred to it.

I went. I rode the Metro down to Gallery Place and found the theater where the event occurred. The production lived up to my expectations. The conveners seemed awfully interested in the audience networking, so they closed the auditorium during breaks, forcing everyone out into a wholly inadequate lobby. There, we couldn't help but bump into each other. I spied a pile of tables and chairs in a corner and gravitated over there. It appeared as though there might have been a kind of cavern there where I might safely hide out from the damned networking. (Note the annoying context…) I was a little discouraged someone else had already taken refuge there. I turned to leave. Then, seeing the sea of faces out there, I retraced my steps. I decided it might be better to hide out with that stranger rather than face that flood of faces again.

He was doing precisely what I had been trying to do: hide from the forced networking exercise. He, too, had been encouraged by his spouse to get out in the world so something might happen. Franklin was also a songwriter. He'd even lived in Nashville for a time. He lived about a mile from our Sherman Street house and had previously lived just a street over from there. He'd worked as a consultant, too, in a prior life. We had too much in common to ignore the connection. We scheduled a more deliberate encounter at our Sherman Street place the following week. That meeting became a standing one, each and every Thursday morning going into early afternoon. We'd share songs and perform inept but emphatic talk therapy on each other, listening to and telling each other’s stories. We became fast friends, by which I mean our friendship lasted.

It survived his relocation to Colorado to be closer to his aging parents. We continued our conversations long distance. Later, when The Muse relocated to her home laboratory in Colorado, I'd drive forty miles each way to meet up with Franklin one morning each week. Later, I invited an author colleague into our conversation. That conversation continues to this day, every Thursday at ten Pacific Time. ChanceEncounters tend to spawn infinite conversations and open-ended relationships uninterested in concluding. Their purpose might be primarily reassurance, for it occurs to me that I would be alone in this world were it not for the products of my ChanceEncounters. Not all will turn into decades-long conversations, but some must; otherwise, we're mere dust.

Any odd morning might be the source of something delightfully infinite. Any person passed on the street might hold a key to resolving one of anybody’s more profound mysteries. I couldn't possibly know. I move in utter ignorance until an encounter happens, until I somehow become foolhardy enough to let another in through my defenses. It seems I fear such eternal salvations more than I have ever feared eternal damnations, for I sure seem bound and determined to maintain my solitary status quos. It rarely occurs to me that I might need more ChanceEncounters. I cannot go seeking them lest I co-opt the essential inconvenience that always accompanies them. It seems they must be genuinely accidental, or they can never hope to become consequential. They happen to one and never speak to any talent or skill. Nobody deserves the least of them. They just fucking happen. Or not.

When Franklin left Maryland to move to Colorado, his friends and former guitar students each wrote a song and performed it at one of the house concerts Franklin convened to help finance his move. Mine was called Chance Encounter:

Let’s hear it for the Chance Encounter,

Let’s sing the praise of unplanned design;

‘Cause she’s always there keepin’ an eye on,

Unlikely, you’ll leave her behind.

More unlikely, she’ll leave you behind ...



Let’s hear it for the grand delusion,

Let’s sing the praise of whatever we find,

For there’s always some reason behind there

Of which we’re supposed to be blind,

Sing the praises of whatever we find.



You’d be nowhere now without her

monkeywrench messin’ your mind.

There’s no reason to think you’ll ever outthink

What chance has intended you find.

What a dandy-good, double-damned bind!



Let’s hear it for the Chance Encounter,

Let’s sing the praise of just what we’ve found!

Though it’s not what we chose, I suppose heaven knows.

It’s the purpose to which we are blind

that determines what we’ll leave behind.

9/18/2011

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz