A Present in the Present
A tidy outfit of shorts, a light blue cotton short-sleeved shirt, a white cardigan with a fleur de lis.
Cold unimaginative nuns.
A dangerous rusty merry-go-round.
I march in step, hand-in-hand to matriculate.
10 annums pass.
Resplendent, a newly purchased three-piece-wool suit, singing Streisand’s ode to the past with class of 1978.
I leave childish ways behind.
I leave what I had known.
Near fainting,dizzying anxiety torment first high school days.
Many people, staring, at my mother-purchased forrest-green corduroy pants.
Four years later, on Mount Tamalpais, leaving behind what was, is, idyllic.
We drink beer all night by the pool.
The band will play until the cops come.
Things get muddy.
Northwest, Southern California Coast, again the Northwest.
Parents split…again.
Another new Dad?
Now, enter the love of my life.
I am taught, by force, self sufficiency.
Return to The Bay again.
Now… I am we, with a donut-stealing dog, Eli.
Peace engulfs my life.
Perspective.
Betsy climbs on our wagon.
Change.
Life becomes a descent to a depressing valley; we start to lose the old, wise, and entertaining, among us.
Joy is dampened.
Peace remains, understanding expands.
Ageing now, I notice; the earth around me doesn’t change.
Trails travelled when I was eight, remain the same.
The slimy, wintry-rain-slickened roots I have touched all of my days stay so.
The creek of childhood stills runs and carries with it my dreams of rope swings, skipping stones.
The birds still fly in the mist of the fog-moistened-air at Hillside.
The earth on my garden-soiled-hands smell of all that I have ever known, will know.
Insignificance, human impermanence, is a freeing meditation.
The knowledge that the beauty and permanence of the deeply hued earth which supports me, electrifies.
All that is contrived will go asunder.
Native denizens of this land said it first, they knew:
Only earth and sky will last forever.
This peace of mind.
A present to myself, these 50 years into my walk.
Posted on March 4, 2014