Borderlands: The Catcher in the Rye

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”

When you are born in the borderlands, there are things within your power to do and change, and others that will always remain beyond your reach. I vaguely remember deciding, as a child, that I wanted to be, or had to be, the catcher in the rye. And I have played that role ever since, becoming part of my identity, with all its ups and downs.

We are all little kids, in a way. No matter how old we grow, in our moments of sorrow, we are vulnerable, in need of another human being. Understanding and accepting this means expecting nothing in return. You catch someone when they are about to fall, and when the time comes, you let them go. Because that is what most people do. They come and go.

But what happens when you are the one who needs to be caught?

Perhaps that is the hardest part of being the catcher. Somewhere, deep down, there is this unspoken desire for someone to see you, to recognise the moments when you, too, are standing dangerously close to the edge. For someone to reach out, without being asked, and become, just for a while, the catcher of the catcher.