Square what circle?

Months ago, not long after I started this blog, I wrote a post about how my wacky midlife hormones had left me angry all the time. Not just vaguely irritated, but spitting-nails-run-for-cover-don't-bother-mom pissed. In fact, when I was trying to figure out a name for the new blog, that was what I started with-- I wanted a title that reflected how downright mad I was about life. My favorite possible title was "Flying the Bird." Because... well, *clears throat* because.

Fortunately, everyone I checked with told me that was a dumb title. Wait, one person said. Do you mean "flying the bird" like "extending your middle finger"? She was a bit unsettled by the idea, but yep, that's what I meant. I'm really glad I didn't go with that, because like all hormonal moments, the constant anger passed, and I would probably be embarrassed now if my blog was called Flying the Bird.

Probably.

So anyway. I had to think of something else, and it occurred to me that Dante's Divine Comedy is really the story of a midlife crisis. Midway through life, he loses his way in a wood, and before you know it there are the gates of Hell before him: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." I spent a really wonderful semester a few years ago studying Dante, so it was fairly fresh in my mind.

My favorite moment in that long poem cycle is when Dante and his guide Virgil emerge from hell. After long hours of slogging through ever more horrifying scenes of torment, weighed down by the stinking, putrid air, the screams and howls of the damned ringing in their ears, they emerge into fresh, cool night air and the sight of stars twinkling above them.

I wanted a line that reflected that moment, but the actual words "then we came forth, to see again the stars" didn't make much of a title. To See Again the Stars sounds like a cheesy romance novel. Not that I have anything against cheesy romance novels.

So I flipped over to the very end, after Dante has continued his journey through Purgatory and the lower levels of Paradise, until he finally reaches the heavens in all their splendor, a sight so spectacularly gorgeous that words cannot describe it. He likens the dilemma of trying to explain what he sees to the ancient mathematical conundrum of how to square a circle--in other words, an impossible task.

I haven't had any visions of glory (if I do, you'll be the first to know), but I liked the idea-- at midlife, I'm pretty thoroughly aware that trying to get a handle on my experience is beyond me. Way beyond.

But I still try. Hence "To Square a Circle." And then, when I was reading Ulysses last spring, I found the line there, too. And that clinched it. 

I told you in the very first post in this blog that someday I would explain the title, so there you go.

(And p.s. I know I told you we would be out of range today, but the weather turned wet and windy so we ended up staying home.)