Goines On: Loose ends

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Goines had decided that morning, urged on by Mrs. Goines, to stop going to the fitness center for a few weeks, or for however long the coronavirus threat continued. But while he could substitute home push-ups and other physical activities – “I could move furniture!” he told Mrs. Goines – he was worried that the Silver & Fit wellness program he participated in through his Medicare PPO health insurance might stop paying his monthly membership fee at the fitness center. Mrs. Goines told him to call the program and ask.
    Goines was surprised that the woman who answered seemed never to have been asked the question whether the program were making any allowance for the coronavirus. After all, the program’s participants were, by definition, older people, more highly at risk if they became infected.
    After a long pause – a really long pause – she said: “I don’t think so.” Goines told her why he was concerned. “I’ve been to the gym six times this month, and if I don’t go four more times, will you still pay them my membership fee for the month?”
    Another pause ensued. “Why not?” she offered. Goines asked, “Don’t I have to go ten times for you to pay?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said. “You can go as many times as you want, or as few. It doesn’t matter.”
    Goines was both flabbergasted and relieved. Flabbergasted to think of all of the months he’d sweated getting in another trip or two to the gym in order to “qualify.” Relieved that he could stay home for a while until the coronavirus scare subsided. He decided to put on his fitness center jersey and take a walk.

    So many loose ends in life, Goines reflected, and the image of a ball of string appeared in his imagination – on the drawing board – or the holographic space – of his mind (Goines thought the mind’s imaging space must be more holographic than planar).
    A ball of string, it now seemed to Goines, was a much better metaphor for a person’s life, or consciousness, than a geometric object, a circle or a sphere. A ball of string with scores of loose ends dangling from it, connections not made, messages unanswered, requests not responded to, reachings-out not grasped, ideas not jotted down, thoughts not elaborated, acts not explored and taken....
    In a single day – or even a single hour – of a person’s life, strands of thought, longing, reaching...were left hanging, dangling (perhaps jangling, too, if we had ears to hear such sounds). It was true even for a retired person living with just a spouse, let alone for a parent with small children or a person with a job, or maybe two jobs.
    And a ball of yarn representing a whole life of thousands of such days would be h u g e, with millions of loose ends dangling, frayed so much in time they might appear a cloud of fuzz....

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