The Lowest Common Denominator
January 19, 2010
I’ve decided I’m about 19 steps into my latest journey-of-a-thousand-miles. I’m not focused on the destination or the miles however; I’m interested in the lowest common denominator – each step. Actually, I’m interested in the lowest common denominator of most things.
Today is the two year anniversary of my cat’s death. I had written a poem titled Nineteen for all the years that she was a seemingly small thing in my life. She’d seen all the supposedly “big” stuff surge and recede; relationships, houses and careers continually came and went.
Hers was a simple routine that never deviated, however. It was boring by most accounts. I fed her twice a day, cleaned her box and we’d talk. Most nights she slept in my bed. But in the last years, her painless but stiff-legged hobble as she hurried to greet me was always wistfully endearing. I truly cherished every moment we spent together regardless of how…well unremarkable, I guess it might appear.
When I think back about various phases of my life, I see them in huge, broad brush stokes; my early twenties when I was clubbing and working as a hairdresser in Hollywood or the hectic years in real estate with barely a moment to contemplate turning the big “four-oh”.
The lowest common denominator of any crude chunk of life might be the tiny day. But buried somewhere in the tiny day, in between the busy business of eating and sleeping and other “ doing” activities, is where I think the only real stuff that matter resides; pensively curling up in a patch of sunlight perhaps.
Moments of doing nothing, sitting in the sun and contemplating both the miracle and the limit of inner-species communication are meaningless to an observer, however. Even in retrospect, when I am in observer-mode, such a thing is in danger of being cast aside as an insignificant activity.
Life is a convoluted equation indeed; how do you identify the lowest common denominator?
