All I remember from gymnastics was the stretching and the odd smells of the vinyl mats and very controlled tumbling while watching as more practiced children in proper attire did back flips. Today at the grocery store, the cashier had not illuminated the AISLE OPEN light, so I asked, and she apologized, saying she had meant to but was so busy helping customers, and I wanted to say, It's not a problem, but then my mind's interior design consultant stepped in and suggested, It's okay, because it's so much more simple and elegant and this is why you shouldn't change course midstream, so I wound up saying, "IT'S NOT OKAY."
The nights are finally cold and the
days are still warm, meaning you are bubbly in the evening and groggy
in the morn. September is the champagne of seasons. We pop the cork
and it is cheap and cloying and it reminds us of when we were young
and alive. Now we are mostly just living. We are crossing the
threshold that marks the change in temporal attitude. We once said,
'I believe the children are the future.' We now understand that the
children are the past. They are licking their fingers and taking the
torches from us with unsteady hands, rolling their eyes, dropping
them into buckets and lighting the way with wee LEDs.
I mislike having to stay cryptic, but
hope is not necessarily change. There are not the typhonic mood
swings from happy to sad of youth, but it doesn't mean I don't still
dream and regret. For the longest time, I worried I had an addictive
personality, but after years of not giving into the most overwhelming
urge to say what I am one drink away from saying, I know now that
either there are quite simply not enough drinks in the world or I do
retain some measure of control. But the threat of tumbling is still
there.
You can never stand in the same river
twice. Someone said that 2,500 years ago, can you imagine? I do. It
is one of the most compelling reasons to hike into the woods. To walk
away from everything we've built here in the future and be able to
connect with the very same human longing that existed in the age of
fire. It is two and half millenia old, and still half the age of the
oldest tree. Can you imagine? I do. It keeps me up some nights,
wondering if some future child of our children might take those seeds
into the universe, scarcely prepared to answer when their children
ask, 'What's a river?'
But there will always be tumbling.
6 comments:
But will there always be Tumblr?
In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep. Through the jungle of doubt, to a river so deep.
Because Billy Joel's essentially two and a half millenia old. Also, because I didn't start the fire, and you didn't start the fire, but with this smoke, it sure seems like it was always burning.
Hi, Brandon.
Eden, there will always be Tumblr. And Myspace and Livejournal and Vox and.. OH MY GOD WHO WAS SUPPOSED WATCH OUT FOR VOX.
matt, you should move uptown, girl.
The take-away for me here, is next year bring more whiskey to test your theory.
As for Matt, get a piano, man.
Sleep tight the river'll outlive our wash.
shari, whiskey is no theory, it is law.
janet, you write the most wonderfully enigmatic comments.
Post a Comment