A visual artist would tell you that on a two-dimensional surface, the vanishing point is where receding parallel lines viewed in perspective appear to converge. Moreover, that same artist would also know that diagonal lines extending outward from the vanishing point serve to create an artificial horizon, enabling that artist to create realistic angles. But I’m no artist. To me, a vanishing point is where someone or something simply disappears. 

Like time. I’m always stunned about how time vanishes. I think I have time to spare, but then—Poof!—it has vanished into thin air and I’m late. Or like money. Money also has a way of vanishing, especially around the end of the month or when the porch needs a new roof. Here today; vanished tomorrow. 

What else vanishes? As I often do when I’m musing about something, I asked the wee wife if she thought youth vanishes. She looked at me, as she often does when I’m in the musing mode, as though I were crazy. “Of course, it doesn’t,” she scoffed, “you’re still young at heart, aren’t you?” A kind thought, perhaps, but nevertheless, my knees crack whenever I stand and it’s getting to be quite a chore to put my socks on. I don’t bend like I used to. Trust me: flexibility vanishes.

When it comes to vanishing, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s perfectly acceptable—even desirable—for some things to take flight. Like the current occupant of the White House, for example. I wish he’d hurry up and vanish along with the others of his ilk. Bye-bye. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. See ya. 

“Stop writing about politics,” she says. “People are tired of reading about politics. Stick to lighter fare, the things you know, simple stuff.” Simple stuff? I just looked at her.

She’s right, of course, but then I got to thinking about that nasty little virus that not only refuses to vanish, but now looms even larger than it did back in the spring. I wish someone could make that vanish—a drug company, Dr. Fauci, my magician friend, anyone? Please just make Covid-19 vanish!

So what else reaches and then passes over the vanishing point? One of Bryson DeChambeau’s tee shots usually vanishes beyond the horizon…except at this year’s Masters tournament when one got lost in the mud. In years past, Thanksgiving dinner would vanish in a flash, but this year, who knows if we’ll even have one. Down in the Amazon rain forest, too many wondrous species have vanished—more’s the pity!—while up in space, a black hole has a way of making everything disappear; even light vanishes in the super gravity of a black hole. Think about that! Simple stuff: HA!

“Does love ever vanish?” I asked myself. (No way was I going to pose that question to you-know-who!)  “No,” I heard myself answer. “When all else is said and done and vanished, love remains.”

I’m not sure who was the first master to render the vanishing point on canvas. As impressive as cave art is, it’s still flat. But creating three dimensions out of two? Surely that was worthy of a Renaissance. Perspective takes time; I know this because I have more of it today than I had yesterday, let alone fifty or sixty years ago. I also know this: as the parallel lines of my life continue to converge, I’ll wonder all the more about what lies beyond my own vanishing point. Don’t worry; I’ll figure out a way to let you know. 

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

Today—finally!—is Election Day. No matter which candidate or party you support, I think you would have to admit that the last four years have exposed the deep fault lines that run under and through our country. They are fault lines of ideology, of wealth, of race, of gender, of religion, of sexual orientation, even of something as seemingly benign as our changing climate. Like Hamlet, we’re constantly prompted to ponder our own existence: to mask or not to mask; to gather or not to gather; to appoint or not to appoint. These, and so many more, are the questions of our day.

To a geologist, a fault line is simply a fracture or a fissure between two blocks of rocks that allow those blocks to move relative to each other. They may be as small as a few millimeters, or as large as continents, extending over thousands of miles. Our two most famous faults—maybe ‘infamous’ is a better descriptor—are the Hayward Fault and the San Andreas Fault that run under large parts of California, the tectonic boundaries between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Separately and together, these two faults have already reached a stress level sufficient to trigger an earthquake of a magnitude greater than 7.0, or what erudite seismologists refer to as “the next Big One.”

Now I’m no geologist; I wouldn’t even dare to play one on tv. But I know this: to a political scientist or a cultural anthropologist, fault lines are the perfect metaphorical equivalent for cataclysmic social change. By tonight or tomorrow or whenever the last ballots have been counted, we’ll see exactly where the fault lines in our society are cracking. Will the next Big One come from suburban women or Floridians or Latino voters or African-Americans or senior citizens or some other subset of the population? We’ll know soon enough.

Fault lines are formed as a brittle response to stress. Geologically speaking, it’s the movement of tectonic plates far below the surface of the earth that produces enough stress to break the rocks on the ground upon which we stand. Culturally speaking, the stresses affecting us these days are just as profound as the movement of tectonic plates: a global pandemic, racial injustice, inequities of wealth, discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation, even excessive carbon emissions. The litany of sins is sadly endless. Moreover, the dubious motives, methods, and morality of the current administration has emboldened the right and galvanized the left, widening all those fault lines that lie beneath the surface of our body politic. It would be nice to think that in time, our wounds can heal, but the truth is that fault lines don’t just go away. The best we can hope for is that they will remain inactive for thousands of years but that’s not the way of this world. Those underlying plates will continue to move and shift and eventually, the ground above them will shake and crack. What do we do then? That’s the question to ask Yorik, but alas, Hamlet’s jester is long-since dead.

Here’s the best response I can come up with: try. Try to forgive. Try to understand. Try to love your neighbor as yourself. At the very least, try to reduce just one of the stresses lying along one of our myriad fault lines, whichever one you can. That might not seem like much, but maybe—just maybe—your ounce of effort might be enough to stave off the next Big One.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.
Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com

It’s easy to feel jaded these days. There’s a lot wrong with the world: a pandemic, climate chaos, racial injustice, social upheaval, political chasms…I could go on, but why? I’d much rather think about what’s right with our planet and the easiest way to do that is to spend time with the grandkids. They see the little things we don’t. They remind us—me, at least—that sometimes there is great delight in simple things, like racing leaves down a country stream, or collecting eggs from the chicken coop, or roasting marshmallows over an evening fire, or just watching a stick bug crawl up your sleeve. I mean, when was the last time you did that?

I admit that these moments don’t come easy. We’re living through a time when it’s awfully hard to get away, to unplug, even to breathe fresh air. Counterintuitive as it sounds, these days you have to make a plan to have no plans. You can’t just stay home because if you do, routines have a way of raising their ugly little heads and suddenly, before you know it, you’re right back where you started and the dishes need washing, the clothes need laundering, there’s a zoom conference somewhere and somebody needs to walk the damn dog. Sigh.

So… A few weeks ago, the wee wife took things into her own capable hands and decamped three generations of us to Quicksburg, Virginia, a dot on the map in the history-rich Shenandoah Valley, to visit one of the famous caverns there. In some ways, the decision to go made itself: a friend whose family own the caverns (you heard that right) called out of the blue and offered us a lovely farmhouse on the property which was unbooked for the weekend. “It’s empty,” our friend said; “it’s yours if you want it.” Now that may seem like a no-brainer, but there’s some risk to moving two grandparents, two parents, and four children all under the age of seven three hours in the car to visit a cave. “What if it rains?” I said. “We’ll be in a cave!” the wee wife reminded me. “Well, what if someone gets sick or stung by a bee? What if we forget some essential piece of kid paraphernalia and have to improvise? What if there’s no wifi? Are you sure about this?” I said. That’s when she gave me the look; you know the one I mean.

Of course, I needn’t have worried. The weather was perfect and the farmhouse had a deep porch overlooking the peaceful hills and valleys of western Virginia. The chickens in the coop produced more than enough eggs for breakfast. The goats in their pen behaved the way goats are supposed to behave. The caverns were indeed wondrous—full of stalagmites and stalactites and pools of gin-clear water and crystals—but what the kids loved best was the picnic lunch that followed our tour and panning for gemstones and geodes in an old-fashioned mining sluice. We even managed to find our way to a nearby covered bridge—the oldest and longest in Virginia according to Google—but a bridge is just a bridge. What really captured the kids’ attention was skipping rocks and racing leaves in the river below the bridge.

I wonder what will be the memories that last? The cavern? Roasting marshmallows over a fire pit and playing tag under the stars? The chickens and the goats? A windmill and the stillness of an old place? Maybe. But for me, I have a feeling it will be the expression on little Annie’s face as she watched that stick bug crawl along her sleeve. No need for wifi after all.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. Two collections of his essays (“Musing Right Along” and “I’ll Be Right Back”) are available on Amazon. Jamie’s website is www.musingjamie.com