In the morning, we think of the many strands running through the cords of our lives as opportunities to be taken, each one leading us forward to a day of satisfying accomplishments. Some days, a coherence carries us through to the end of this vision. Other days, it all comes apart by the evening.
Last night, after a long day of stumbling from task to task, I stepped through the door from the house into the garage, only to be caught short. The shoelace on my right foot had loosened during the day, leaving one end trailing behind without my notice. I had closed that end of the shoelace in the doorway behind me, and swinging my leg forward, had ripped off the end of it.
The shoelace, under the force of my careless movement, spun apart, leaving a sprawling collection of threads where there had once been a coherent cord. Like that lace in my shoe, I had come apart. I was unstrung. I felt frayed.
Like many emotions, the fraying is an external physical metaphor for what’s happening inside ourselves, our focus unspun, our presence gone somewhere else. The illusion of a supposedly unified identity has been exposed, as we see our twisted selves let loose in every direction.
