ON 2:31

While watching Whitenoise last night (don't bother), I noticed that everything seemed to happened at the stroke of 2:30. This time of night had the recurring importance of witching hour. That's good for Batman (Keaton should make more movies), but my number has always been 2:31. It started in 1998 and has just kind of stuck with me since the first night.

It was one of the first times I had ever stayed out late. I snuck in, quietly through the darkness of my parents house. I got out of my smoky clothes and walked out to the kitchen for a little snack. Without turning on any lights, I grabbed a banana, and glanced at the microwave clock. It was 2:31. I peel what looks like a good, solid banana only to find that the bottom half is totally browned out. A quick double check of the peel reveals that, indeed, this banana looked like it would be as yellow on the inside as it was outside. Huh. Never being a fussy eater, I ate the whole thing -brownish mushy stuff included. It tasted like banana. Eyes adjusting the darkness into a deep bluish din, I walk back towards my room, glancing through my brother's open door to the bright green numbers. The clock in his room read 2:31. Hmm. I had just finished a thorough lecture series on Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and thought of the Nellie. Specifically when the narrator mentions the water on the Thames is at the point of the tide where its neither coming in nor going out. Symbolically, time standing still. So I interpreted seeing 2:31 on both time pieces as a symbolic halt in the space time continuum. In HoD, time being frozen lends significance to the story that follows. In my world of 1998, I began analyzing the banana I had just eaten -and its heart of darkness. In HoD, they stop at three stations as they travel deeper and deeper into the interior looking for Kurtz. The three stations, staying true to the zeitgeist of HoD, of course stand for the id, ego and superego. I then analyzed myself, and my relative happiness with life. What I came up with was this: The id is represented by the number 1, the ego by number 2, and the superego by number 3. That established, 2:31 represented my journey to each station during my senior year of high school. To sum up, the year started with timid unhappiness, carried into a faux grown up faze, but then ended with a vow to live in the moment, and tap my animalistic desires. All this fuss surrounded my pangs for girls but the metaphor I wrote down to capture my idea of carpe diem was this: Standing on the shore of Lake Michigan at night, naked, I'm staring out into the vast darkness. I sink slightly as I push off the sand and I break into a sprint, hurdling the on-rushing water. I go as far out as possible before my momentum carries me into a long stretched, head first dive. -Truly one of the most refreshing sensations a human can have- open water on naked skin.

I thought 2:31 was a key to something significant. That significance is no longer as clear, but I still see the numbers. I like that the building I'm selling has 231 homes in it. And today I looked at the clock twice and caught 2:31 both times. It still makes me pause. That's why I'm writing this. But now when a few 231 are strung together in a day, it simply makes me feel like I'm in tune. With what? I don't really know. The Force. The Matrix. The Cosmic Tumblers. The Trail of bread crumbs we humans can stumble upon now and then. There are other phenomena that make me feel tuned in(and I suppose I'll get to them), but I guess its all a collective that simply lets me feel like I'm ON.