Crossroads

You know how sometimes a concept gets stuck in your head and you can't shake it and you don't know why or how it got there?  It's times like those when I put pen to paper (so to speak) or in this case fingers to keyboard.  If I can't flush out the meaning by exploring my own thoughts, then there's no hope for me as a writer.

So the theme of a crossroads keeps popping into my head.  In the context of life, research, birthdays... thinking about each aspect of my life seems to land me at a crossroads.  Got me thinking about the blues, i.e. Robert Johnson, selling my soul to the devil for a mess of talent in one specific medium (guitar or chromatography or writing for example).  Let's say this is the dark side of being at a crossroads, being somewhere mystical (between worlds).  Desperation, confusion and danger seem to previal in this concept of a crossroads.  Criminals and those who took their own lives were traditionally buried at crossroads.  I wonder if there is any astrological significance to this day or week...

I was also thinking about crossroads in terms of travels, knowledge and ideas.  Certain places become wealthy of thought by being geographically positioned at a crossroads.  Different cultures encounter each other and exchange of wisdom is mutually beneficial.  The same could be said for academia and our IGERT training program being a crossroads between traditional disciplines.  This seems to be a rosy view of the meaning of a crossroads.

Finally we come to discuss my birthday.  Finding onesself "at a crossroads" implies that one is literally in crisis.  A crossroads is a turning point, with an unpredictible outcome.  Personal crisis occurs when events trigger extreme tension and stress within an individual which require major decisions or actions to resolve.  Crisis can also mean "a testing time" or "emergency event."  I would say the culmination of my life's educational phase and entry into professional work is such a type of crisis.  Not to mention preparing to defend my dissertation, which is a battle of its own.  Becoming truly an adult, potentially a mother, and owning up to my new status in society... I am at these crossroads.

There's also somewhere in my psyche poems by Robert Frost and the ethos of the Cowboy Way in contrast with Kit McCallum where the twentieth century message of choosing to take the "high road" is updated to something more like "choose the best road for you or make your own road" rather than bending to society's pressures regarding which road is the best.  I'm not sure how to choose where to go from here, to be honest.  I guess I need to slow down and keep setting aside time for myself to think and process everything that is going on in my life right now.

The crossroads is represented visually by the christian cross and the mandala, which are useful in meditation practice for focusing attention and according to Carl Jung help the artist work towards wholeness in personality.  My dear roommate has encouraged me to draw lately.  Perhaps the mandala is the way to go.