Putting Feet in Front of Feet in the Age of Covid: Tightrope Walker in a Dream

                                                                 Tallulah Gorge in Autumn

What The Age of Covid Feels Like

In the Time of the Great Plague of 2020 we have all begun feeling like tightrope walkers in a dream, say, Wallenda, making his slow perilous way, step by tiny step, over Tallulah Gorge, leaning slightly left, then slightly right, stopping to readjust the tilt of the pole we carry, stepping out once more, one step, two step, right step, left step—when suddenly, halfway across, high up over the churning whitewater far, far below, we realize we’re naked, we’ve left our pants at home, and all the spectators are laughing and pointing at our grotesque danglers—the testicles that just do not hang down in a proper way—and, worst of all, we’ve forgotten, utterly and irrevocably forgotten, how to put one foot in front of the other.

 

Reminds me of my days in U.S. Army basic training, Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, spring of 1963. Large numbers of my fellow recruits could never learn to march, unable as they were to distinguish right foot from left.

 

Concentrate on Your Feet and All Will Be Well

Pascal says what people need is “a violent and vigorous occupation to take their minds off themselves.” This is especially good advice in the year 2020. “When dancing,” opines Pascal, “you must think where to put your feet.”

                                                                Blaise Pascal, Penseés

[excerpt from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]

                                                                         Max Ernst