29,420 Transpositions

The Oura image was simple.

STEPS

29,420

It did not show that, while I was walking, The Aya Manuscript was being written.

It did not show the website appearing.

It did not show the first chapter entering many languages, or the email carrying the manuscript as a gift toward the APL Users Meeting in England.

It counted only steps.

But the steps and the thoughts were not two separate sequences.

They formed one table.

Rows of walking.

Columns of thought.

And with every step, the table transposed.

⍉

Walking turned horizontal: the path extended through space, one foot placed after another.

Thinking turned vertical: ideas crossed the path, entered one another, gathered into chapters, images, arguments, laughter, and language.

Then another step.

⍉

What had been a row became a column.

What had been carried by the body became visible to thought.

What had been thought returned to the body and continued walking.

Not walking first and writing later.

Not a horizontal array of steps eventually converted into a vertical array of thoughts.

One table, continuously changing orientation.

Twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty steps.

Twenty-nine thousand four hundred and twenty transpositions.

The Oura image counted the movement of my feet.

It could not count how many times the manuscript turned while they moved.