Looking back

Why it is we’re so inevitably amused by snapshots from the past I shall never fully comprehend.  It’s as though after a prolonged evaporation we’re looking at something that occurred in someone else’s dream.  “How young we both were!  And the dark hair colour!  Oh my, I’d never get into that outfit now!” We may conclude we have not aged well but confidentially we know we’re here to talk about it.  Many are no longer whinnying among us!  Life has for some been a hastened passage! The spirited gems and tantalizing ingredients of an adventurous and dynamic life are for some irreverently compressed into a miniature legend. Meanwhile I fondle my own bijoux, my half-starved touch upon its carat weight, creation and burnish.

It’s a raw and rainy day here even to the point of intermittent wet snow that lingers on the window sills overlooking the claggy meadow.  There is no promotion of outdoor bicycling today. We’re nonetheless on the cusp of springtime and summer, the hesitant transition from warrens of security and darkness to the burgeoning verdancy of valleys and fields. First a reminder of the northern chill and frosty air! Perhaps afterwards the retreat of an afternoon nap.

Our lives have been reduced to its favourite and elemental features. Little if anything is now either superfluous or extraordinary. There are no longer endless filing cabinets and cluttered shelves. Whatever ornaments remain are noticeable and daily appreciated. There’s nothing of value in any drawer or boudoir box. Like a homeless Nomad through this episode called Life I carry about me the necessities and treasures of a generation. But even as the walls and desks about me narrow in scope, even as my very carcass diminishes by the hour, as my ability to go anywhere is dissolved, I persist in my ambition to discover the wellspring of magnificence of all that there is in this life upon the most curt examination.

I don’t need a snapshot to remind me how whacking great life was or is! Certainly my vanity propels the doubtful projection of a photograph but frankly I haven’t much interest to re-visit the past. My insight now as much as then is likely wan; but my vigour to unfold what’s ahead is very much alive. My energy is devoted not to unearthing novelty but to synthesizing what is already familiar. Putting together the components. Assembling the streams and rivers of insinuation. It is curiously as much a funeral pyre, a collection of all that conspires and illuminates to the most spectacular force for a brilliant ending! Mine is not a morbid ardency; rather it is a resourceful conclusion to a steadfast being.