Life as a Juxapositional Paradox

The following entry was written on August 29, but is being posted today (as I have returned to Boston).

Inspired by and at Lazy Jane's
Most is written as a creative writing exercise, but there remains the seeds for future thoughts.

While eating at Lazy Jane's in Madison, Wisconsin, I sat next to a lady who looked as if in her earlier days she had lived a hippy-like existence. Her strawberry blond hair was pulled back into a bun, but much of it had escaped the captivity of the hairband and straggled forth in every direction like vines in a garden.

Her plate was balanced with ease on her lap without the help of her red freckled hands with the bluish veins pushing at the tautly pulled skin. The plate itself was filled to overflowing with a multitude of foods of various textures and earth-tone colors. At the center, surrounded by a wealth of crisp looking sauteed vegetables and golden brown potatoes streaked with dark brown black lines, rested the bun acting as a temporary protective coating for the treat that rested within - the vegetable burger that I had asked about when ordering my own meal wondering which vegetarian meal I should choose to satiate my appetite that was raging from the seeming emptiness of my stomach. I had chosen another main course, but my interest in the veggie burger did not wane and so I asked the aging former hippy lady for her thoughts about the vegetarian delight on her plate. She looked up at me with resolve and conviction, and stated without hesitation that the Lazy Jane veggie burger was in a class of its own but, since was no longer a vegetarian, she improved the taste by adding strips of crispy fat oozing bacon making it a bacon veggie burger, a true juxapositional paradox.

These words ("juxapositional paradox") probably are not used in a proper manner or in a way that makes sense given their precise meanings, but I like both words in terms of the texture of their sounds and their individual sense.

Thought of the Day: In life, there are many of these bacon-veggie burger situations, the juxtapositions and paradoxal times or events that do not seem to fit together but which sometimes, like the added flavor of the bacon, improve the original. In the end, to get the benefits of these paradoxes and juxtapositions, we have to be willing to experiment and will to accept that which is not familar to us.