Curved Lines

 If a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, a mad dash to get there, a curved line is the scenic route.

 Aren't we all attracted to subtle bends? Does it not mesh with something in our personalities? I am attracted to cattails at the local pond for this reason.

 These look like Japanese brush strokes on a canvas, calligraphy even, and they offer a message in a language that writes between the lines. I can stand and watch these thin grasses bend in a slight breeze, their reflections following suit in a choreographed ballet. It is a message written in light, natural poetry dabbled on the surface of a pond.

 When I see these subtle bends I think of Einstein's warped space-time. Gravity bends that, too, just as gravity bends these cattails. Look at the path of the Voyager I and II spacecraft through our outer solar system. Both paths were bent first by Jupiter, then Saturn. While Voyager I then exited the solar system, Voyager II took a tighter curve sending its camera on past Uranus and Neptune in a "Grand Tour". That's the power of a curved line.

Think of a circle: the straight arrows of radius and diameter, boring and straight-forward. But think of the circumference, infinitely bending, traveling forever, world without end. Which goes the distance?

 A curved line smiles.