Who Wants The Shoe?

Pass “Go”. Collect two hundred dollars. Roll again and move. These are words of wisdom, folks.

There’s a quote I’ve carried with me since Mrs. Jorgensen’s 11th grade English class. (Nothing to do with Monopoly™ -- wait for it, you know I always come back.) William Butler Yeats, “The eagle flies in an ever widening gyre.” That image has stayed with me since 1977. It describes a cycle, except you don’t end up where you started, you’re a bit higher. Then you go through it again and again, the same cycle, only each time it’s a little bigger, a little higher. There’s progress. No matter how discouraging, pointless or repetitive life seems, there’s always progress. That image has gotten me through a lot, and I’ve clung to it all these years, except…

Except it’s wrong. I finally looked it up. The actual quote is “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer.” Not even an eagle, a falcon. Also cool, but sheesh. The poem really is by Yeats, and called “The Second Coming”. It’s religious, which I most sincerely am not. I don’t know about Mrs. Jorgensen but I suspect it’s way too late to ask.

Conceptual spank! Here was this metaphysical mental video that carried me through the dull and the bad, but now it turns out to be something else entirely. Read it yourself if you’re curious, that’s not my point.

I’m keeping the bath water and throwing out the baby. No, wait. That’s not right either. My beloved metaphor for the vicissitudes and travails we all face is less apt than a stupid Monopoly™ game. So instead of a lovely eagle in flight, now I have to use that old shoe going around the board. Sure, it’s always the same board, and you’ll land on someone else’s property and you won’t get the good Community Chest card, but every time you pass Go, you’ll still get your $200 and that’s still progress.

The moral here is: Don’t look a metaphor in the mouth, because it might bite you in the ass.