I have come to the conclusion that our lives are indeed made up of a series of lines, literal and theoretical. The most literal, right from the start, is that line which initially attaches you to your female parent, known as the umbilical cord. Even though it has been shown many times on TV and in educational films that either the physician or the midwife or the male parent makes a show out of severing that particular line, for some families it seems that the scissors never completely worked. I have had personal experience with individuals who are still firmly connected to their "original line." They are not considered well-adjusted.
We learn in preschool or kindergarten to wait in line, whether to get into the classroom, go for recess, get lunch, use the restrooms, or be dismissed for the day. This is also the first place we learn about another, paper-associated line. That would be the thick black line drawn around everything that exists for the application of color in art class. It is the line within which we must always keep our creativity, according to the art teacher. Some unknown disasters await the poor soul who dares to venture outside those lines with a wayward purple crayon or too-wet paintbrush.
Later in school the lines of people take on more significance. We line up for every activity with our best friends, or with friends we would like to acquire of the opposite sex. We line up at school dances: boys on one side and girls on the other, and most of them stay in those lines for the entire duration of the dance. At late-teen and later adult events we are introduced to "Line Dances," which seem to be specific for each song played by a knowledgeable DeeJay. There is always one person in these lines who has perfected each dance, and shows off that perfection with a real flair. The rest of the line is inevitably confused and conflicted, feeling out of line physically and emotionally.
As adults we are introduced to a few too many lines, from the movie theater to the drugstore to the sale at the department store, to the acquisition of groceries on a Saturday afternoon. Those lines are sacrosanct, with firm unwritten rules about maintaining the exact place one has in the line. Anyone choosing to invade any one of those lines is in for a battle.
A recent line I experienced was a reminder of an earlier time, when I had first stood in line at the Motor Vehicle Bureau and waited to take my driver's exam. I passed the first time I took it, so there should have been no anxiety about standing in that line again, but I felt the walls close in on me as I was waiting, not for a test, but to get my license renewed, and a new photo taken. Somewhere in another place I am certain there is someone who is pleased with the photo on their driver's license, but it has never been me.
I was in line this time, however, with an interesting group. I went to a small, out of the way office, thinking there would possibly be no line, but what I found instead was a group of six or seven folks waiting for new photos, all over 55 years of age. I haven't a clue why we all ended up together at the DMV on the same Tuesday afternoon, but we formed an instant friendship and told funny driving and photo stories for the twenty minutes or so I was there. I do know people my age who hate lines, and hate waiting, but I really think the majority of us are just pleased to have an opportunity to stand among friends, waiting for whatever is in store. The prevailing attitude is as follows: as long as we are stuck with it, we might as well make it enjoyable.
As for those other lines, the paper-based ones, I have to let you know that in the first formal drawing class I ever took, at a real art school, the instructor made a loud and definitive point that there was never, never, never a line around anything we might see in nature or the world around us, so he was not ever to see a line around any single object we might create in pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, or any other medium he could recall. The result of an outline was to be a failing grade.
This came as a shock and a relief to me. I was always the one with the wandering crayons, purple or otherwise, and I was thrilled to know that I was right in following the edges of my objects outside those claustrophobic lines. Needless to say, I got an "A" in that class!
I like to find morals in things, and by now you have probably figured out that most of my little meanderings here have some sort of point to them. This one is simple: when learning about lines as a child, the people lines are flexible, while the art lines are not. As an adult, the reverse is true: people lines are absolute and not to be tinkered with, but they can be fun if the right people are in them. Art lines, however, have all but disappeared, leaving a free-formed beauty to nature and our surroundings.
Something to mull over in your spare time, possibly while standing in line?
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