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Jammed Sliding Doors

When I followed Quantum Leap assiduously, my favorite expression was, “Oh, Boy!” Samuel Beckett’s catchphrase just before he felt that he was leaping into the body of his next "host."

Throughout the series, we were given piecemeal information about how this partial amnesia happened; the concept behind the show was Sam’s swiss cheese brain. In each episode, he is someone else – the person he sees in the mirror – of either gender and of any age, nationality, religion, or physiogamy.

He is not alone in his predicament; however his mentor Rear Admiral Albert Calavicci is a hologram.

A cloche skirt is based on two concentric circles drawn on a piece of fabric.  The diameter of the inner circle is one fourth of your waist measurement and the outer one is that plus length of the skirt. To make the circles, you simply tie a piece of chalk to the end of the string, pin the other end to the centre of the fabric, and stretch the string while drawing around the pin. You remove the inner circle, make two hems, and thread elastic through the narrower one. Very simple!

The theory of life-travel was also explained by the parallelism of a piece of string, but in a totally different analogy. One end of the string was Sam's date of birth; the other end was his date of death. Sam’s two ends are connected, and the resulting loop scrunched such that bits and bobs intersect at different points. Sam can travel from one "junction" in his life to another, in the bat of an eye.

In the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors, she plays a public relations specialist who has just lost her job. She just misses the subway train when the sliding doors close in front of her – or do they?  For from then on, we see two of her lives in parallel - the Helen who just made it and caught her boyfriend in flagrante delicto, and the Helen who missed the trip and got mugged (and met a new man.)

Life is a series of choices. We may choose to go with the flow or be the best “we” possible. We may choose to use our lives for the service of others or we may just live in an ego-centric universe. But wouldn’t it be nice to tie up all the loose ends of all the strings every so often?

One ball of string has countless
feasibilities and possibilities:
lace, crochet, tatting, macramé, knitting, weaves.
Or simple, just-for-fun-things:
braiding, pom-pom chicks,
string art snowflakes, rag-doll wigs,
from to coils of rope to finger-lace hair-braids,
misanga mementos, yarn doll souvenirs,
dream catcher keepsakes, friendship bracelet tokens.
Useful, functional, convenient.
One life has countless opportunities.
Help me find enough time to empathize;
time enough to help.

-Tanja Cilia

About Tanja Cilia