Last year, the future

“Funny to him” that hat…his signature back then - in Bellingham - I don’t know who took this picture, but I remember the time - it was all about the future.

The carnival keeps showing itself to me, in all its false hope for joy.  Joy visits us in tiny snippets of time.  We live in the moment, and plan for the future.  Many of us, anyway.

Tonight’s song is accompanied by a video replete with ferris wheel lights, and lyrics about the future.  The future…what a concept.  I’m finding it folding over on itself (is this quantum or mechanical physics? anyone, anyone?), and coming up with only now.  Joy.  Now.  Joy.  Now.  Tragedy.  Now.

Last year at this time, Owen was talking about his future, which in the larger picture, meant all of our futures, with him as a part of the formula.  In “life according to Owen” we did it for 20+ years, in the fashion of families who live with fortunate circumstances intersticed with what we consider everyday life events.  Grandparents die, parents are hired into new jobs, babies are born, we find new love, our college GPA is 4.0, and life as we know it, moves on.

Back then, not so long ago, we lived our lives with the future stretched out in front of us like a lifeline.  Just that.  We didn’t see the line cut short - nor our futures changed forever in the way it eventually manifested itself.  All of us were doing our best to hold tight to our visions of what could be our futures.  Not so hard to believe, really.

“Say hello to good times…”  That’s what we saw and experienced early last year.  Full of hope, people don’t pay much attention to disasters looming ahead.  Thank god.  If we did, we would be reticent to place one foot in front of the other.  Nothing would get done.  We would be as numb and unable to function, as people stuck in an elevator during a nuclear holocaust.  I am not stuck in an elevator.  I’m riding it.  My destination?  The 11th floor.

Owen lives on the 11th floor of our house now.  The 11th floor in my metaphor for life, is that place known as heaven to some, nirvana to others, and Mercury (the spirit world) to me.  I’m riding, but the trip is slow, and I’m just coming up on “Floor 10″ - anyone? anyone?  I have no need to push the buttons on the elevator wall, to get where I’m going.  The elevator operates on a timetable having no clock, calendar, or diagram.  It is.  It does.  It gives.  And, it takes.

Nat told us last weekend that he doesn’t read blogs, because it’s too easy to get caught up in flipping from blog to blog, too easy to become involved in other people’s lives - and he has enough to deal with, in his own life.  I get it.  He doesn’t carry a cell phone, either.  He prefers a simpler life.  

Dave and I are considering a time when we can live a simpler life.  We’re looking forward to a time when we may even be able to life live off the grid.  The grid, just like the future…what a concept.  Nat has something over all of us.  He does it here and now.  He is an honorable man, with honorable intentions.  Perhaps he knows more about heaven, about beauty, than any of us. 

Song for the night: Futures, Jimmy Eat World (the hat, the future, the “Ferris” wheel (anyone? anyone?))

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FviRDzwqRgU&feature=related

~ by Linda on March 4, 2008.