Walking a white line

“Walking a white line” is Michael Noonan’s image for the exposed, solitary course he had followed since Jo died. As he breaks down on the steps between Sara Laughs and the lake, the phrase gathers grief for the years he lost, cautious hope that his writing may return, and fear at how narrowly he believes he escaped harm.

The Image and Its Setting

Michael is descending toward the lake after an exhausting morning. The path has particular force because it is the same one that, in a dream, had been lined with glowing paper lanterns. There are twenty-three railroad-tie steps between Sara Laughs and the water; after taking only four or five, he stops as the magnitude of what has just happened catches up with him.

The white line is not presented as a route he deliberately chose or as a danger he fully understood at the time. Looking back, Michael sees that he had been walking straight down the middle of the road since Jo’s death. The metaphor makes his vulnerable passage legible only after the immediate crisis has passed.

Grief, Work, and Release

Michael cries for the empty years he spent without Jo, without friends, and without his work. The return of writing changes the meaning of that period, but it does not erase it: his relief remains bound to mourning for what was absent.

His hope is guarded. Eight pages of hard copy seem to suggest that his worklessness may be ending, yet he recognizes that a small beginning cannot establish a lasting recovery. The phrase therefore falls at a threshold rather than a finished resolution: he can imagine a return to work, but does not yet know whether it will hold.

Narrowly Averted Harm

The image also expresses fear. Michael compares his tears to the response that can come when an awful experience is over or a terrible accident has narrowly been avoided. He believes that, by some miracle, he has been carried out of harm’s way, but does not know who carried him. He leaves that question unanswered for another day rather than claiming an explanation the moment does not provide.

After crying, Michael continues down to the lake and wades in. The water feels to him like a resurrection. That final movement gives the white-line image a change of direction: the precarious passage ends, for now, in release and renewed possibility, while its cause remains unknown.