Musings From the Coffeehouse #5

Going In Circles

This morning, with only twenty minutes to spare for exercise, I decided to set the timer on my phone and simply bicycle around my block until the timer went off. My block, a quarter mile circle, is also my entire neighborhood.

As I made the loop again and again, a thought occurred to me: going in circles is much more difficult than going somehwere. Boring. Pointless. Body and spirit rebels against it.

Which brought me to a greater realization. I’ve been struggling with my work in progress. Going in circles. Reading, revising, questioning, agonizing. Then repeating said cycle. No wonder I’m tired and dispirited. No wonder.

And what of the bigger cycle? Of my life? Of all ours? Of history? Making the same mistakes over and over; falling into the same pattern of behavior, always with the same disastrous results.

The same pattern of behavior. The same disastrous results.

Yesterday, in an act of terror, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Going in circles. A ridiculous loop of bickering, hatred and violence.

Move forward. Go somewhere different.

Break the circle.