The Center of the Universe

Inspirational song: Yakko's Universe (Animaniacs)

I stood on the concrete metaphor for what it's like being a small-time blogger this morning. On the way to the airport, my stepfather and I drove through downtown Tulsa, and found an acoustical anomaly referred to as "the Center of the Universe." It's a small circle, on a sloping bridge that goes over some train tracks. The are bricks in a spiral pattern around the circle, and from there rough-aggregate concrete forms a small piazza. There are planters along the edges, with gorgeous deep red crepe myrtles in full bloom at this time of year. When we arrived, a group of kids and a couple of moms were there, playing with the spooky effects of this spot on earth. When you stand around the piazza, everything sounds relatively normal, for being outside, near train tracks, in a windy city. When you stand on the concrete circle, suddenly all sounds are amplified, like you are standing in a clear acrylic cylinder, and sounds are bouncing back from all sides, very close to you. It's disconcerting when the first echo hits your ears. You try to continue to speak normally, but just like when you hear your own voice feeding back on a cell phone, it's difficult. You think you are broadcasting ten times louder, by speaking your mind. But outside of your own tiny little circle, those closest to you can hear you, and more than a few feet away, no one knows you have spoken at all. Et, voila. My life, in one tidy metaphor.

There are days when I'm like those little kids on the circle, bending over and just saying "hello!" over and over, to hear the sound effect. But there are days when I'm pouring my heart out, and to my own ears, it sounds so loud, so profound. Outside of my tiny little spiral of influence, no one is listening. When I first started this, I was so shy. I was okay with those early posts that were only ever read by five or six people, almost entirely family members. Now I am confident in my voice, but still so limited in my reach. I don't know how to amplify my voice any more than I already have. I'd love to find people who actually want to listen. How do I find them?

Back in high school, one of my good friends, whose father worked for the factory that made a certain famous plastic cup brand, brought in a strange object to the band building (where we all hung out after school). If I remember the story right, they were changing colors at the plant, and the plastic extruder poured out a ten inch tall glob of bright yellow plastic, that looked like it had been piped out of a giant pastry bag. My friend's father let him have that glob of waste plastic. He was always rather eccentric, this band friend of mine, coming up with all sorts of cleverness that amused the rest of us teenagers, and when he proclaimed that the gloppy yellow cone was the center of the universe, we all giggled and went along with the joke. I can still remember seeing him staring at it, focused, as if he were contemplating the great mysteries of life, yet barely able to keep a straight face.