Current

It has been such a year.  Things have changed so quickly ... and then there have been times when it seemed as if there was never going to be any change at all.  We've lived together through it all; and we've lived, each of us, locked away in our own private struggles.  We've tried to lean on one another, and we've tried to be strong for each other.  Often, there has been no strength left between us, and we've collapsed in a jumble of swirling feelings and hurts.

Today, I awakened with the word, "current" in my brain.  Long-time readers will know that I have a thing for words; their meanings and their roots.  I love it when a word comes to stay with me for awhile, and I enjoy the act of wandering around with a word in my head -- turning it over and tasting it and seeing what secrets it may have to share.  So...  current...

One of the first things to occur to me as I thought about the word "current" early this morning when things were still quiet and sleepy around here was the multitude of meanings the word carries.  The dictionary gives us a view of the territory that gets covered when we start contemplating this particular linguistic gem --

adj.

1.

a. Belonging to the present time: current events; current leaders.

b. Being in progress now: current negotiations.

2. Passing from one to another; circulating: current bills and coins.

3. Prevalent, especially at the present time: current fashions. See Synonyms at prevailing.

4. Running; flowing.

n.

1. A steady, smooth onward movement: a current of air from a fan; a current of spoken words. See Synonyms at flow.

2. The part of a body of liquid or gas that has a continuous onward movement: rowed out into the river's swift current.

3. A general tendency, movement, or course. See Synonyms at tendency.

4. Symbol i, I Electricity

a. A flow of electric charge.

b. The amount of electric charge flowing past a specified circuit point per unit time.

Interesting, to me at least, is the etymology. The word first appears around 1300, meaning "running, or flowing," from the Old French corant "running, lively, eager, swift."  That seems to derive from the Latin currere meaning "to run, or move quickly."  There's a whole world of words pointing to the eventual meaning of our word, "current."  The Greek -khouros gives us "running," and the Lithuanian karsiu is literally "go quickly."  The Old Norse used the word horskr to mean  "swift," and in Old Irish and Middle Welsh, we find carr which gives us "cart, and wagon." The same word, for the Bretons was karr which turned into "chariot." In Welsh we find carrog which meant "torrent". Meaning "prevalent, generally accepted" is from 1560s.

So, having indulged my fetish for fun with words, I can imagine that some readers will, by now, be wondering what the point might be -- or maybe even if there IS a point...  Be patient with me.  I'll see if I can make my thoughts line up and actually say something coherent here.

I started out this morning with the word current in the sense of flow.  Specifically, I was thinking of the flow of water in a stream or a river or even the rip currents one might find at the ocean's edge.  Currents can be relatively gentle when the body of water is small and the forces that create the directional flow are slight.  A gentle stream can be moved along down a slight slope, and the force of the current makes the water sparkle and gurgle over rocks and logs in a melodic and calming passage.  But change the slope, or the volume of water, or add some additional factor into the mix, and that gently flowing water can change into a deadly torrent that sweeps away everything in its path.  Floods and tsunamis and storm surges and cloud bursts can all bring the destructive power of swiftly flowing water to bear on anything standing in the way.

I have felt like we have been swept along in currents that simply overwhelmed us this year; currents resulting from storms that we never saw coming.  That's one of the things about a current -- it isn't necessarily easy to see.  It may flow beneath the surface, and capture you by surprise.  I'm sure there will be those who would ask how it was that we didn't see what was bearing down on us.  I'm aware that there are those outside our lives who saw clearly the mistakes that we were making, and of which we were so unaware.  I can understand their frustration.  I often wonder about people who build homes in the flood plain of a major river, or directly in the likely path of some significant number of Atlantic hurricanes.  What do they expect, after all?  Do they somehow believe that they will be immune to the almost certain disasters that are aimed right at them?  Is it the pure and irresistible allure of the shore?  The compelling loveliness of the stream side?  Maybe I understand that set of choices better now than I once did -- I too have walked to the edge and stood there entranced, even as everyone around me shouted that it was shear folly.  And so the currents knocked us down and dragged us under and swirled us against the sharp-edged rocks -- and tossed us, broken, upon the shore.  Current...

Then there is the "present" meaning of "current,"  as in current events or the current state of affairs.  Currently... we are -- or things are -- or life is... like this or that.  Except that, as one describes the present moment, it careens past at the speed of time.  Gone.  And now there is the new moment.  And now that too, is flown past.  The now of the current moment happens and is gone -- like a dream awaking.  Reach out to touch it, pin it down, capture it to think about later -- and it evaporates in a sparkle and a mist and a vague sense of disquiet.  I've always found that to be one of the benefits for me of spanking.  Spanking brings me right smack (I apologize, but I couldn't resist that one) into the present moment.  In fact, it is one of the tricks I've used through the years to get me through an intense spanking -- never think about the last stroke or the next.  In the middle of a spanking, if you could get into my head, what you would hear would be me saying, "now, and now, and now..."   Or, perhaps, "one, one, one, one..."  It may be that there are lessons there for this life we're trying to cobble back together:  Stay away from the past, and don't gaze too far into the future.  Keep it current --  now, and now, and now, and now.  Current.

In another context, current can be about electricity, power, charge, juice, energy.   Between He and I, there remains something electric; something so elemental that we are drawn together -- maybe at the atomic level.  Maybe. George Carlin once opined that electricity is just organized lightning.  Oh yeah!  I well remember being struck by that lightning when, very early on, I found myself drawn, elementally, to the magnetism and power and energy of this man.  He will remind me, these days, that I knew what I was getting into -- knew it all up front and ahead of making the commitments that brought us to this place.  I'd probably argue that point, but there seems no point.  And anyway, I was, like Paul, thrown from my horse and struck blind.  In those high energy, electrically charged early days, He might have explained in careful detail that He was, in fact, an axe murderer and a cannibal and a Republican -- and I'd have still followed the same path.  I have no doubt.  I like electricity.  I like it in my life and I like it in my play.  I am a great fan of the violet wand (although, sadly, He is not).  The current of our lives makes sparks and sometimes one or the other of us gets struck by a bolt from the heavens.  It may turn out that, if we are going to insist on keeping hold of each other (and I do hope we will), that lightning will strike the same place over and over.  Current. 

Don't give up on us, friends...  And for those who are not friends -- I wouldn't count us out.  The current still runs between us.  We're unsure and uncertain as we work our way back to playing in the flow, but we are testing the waters.  There remains the energy and the electricity and the spark.  We've been tossed and left half-drowned, but we are alive and we are still present with one another.  Current.

s.