Time….
Time goes slowly…. Today is the last day of 2018. Tomorrow technically will begin at 12:00 AM which will herald the begining of 2019. A few friends will come over for some genial conversation, a celebration of friendship, and of the passage of time. Will I remain awake until midnight? I doubt it. Those days are past for me, and likely for our guests.
The New Year awaits and the old year ends within a few hours. My thoughts unaccountably called up a lyric fragment of an old love song, Unchained Melody which is about time. The story line of the lyric is about emotional longing, the felt slowness of times passage, and about a great river flowing to the sea.
Are we not all borne along by the mighty river of time? No one, and no thing is outside of the flow, not even mountains. I know we humans are acutely aware of our condition subject to time. When we happen to be passionately engaged with someone, the texture of time is in the forefront of our minds. I recall a line spoken by a well known author, Ray Bradbury who is a native son of Waukegan. Bradbury said something like: the secret of living a fulfilled life is knowing how to fall in love, and stay in love.
We live in a troubled time. The government is partially shut down, and I will not go on.
Do we not want to stay in love with ideas, and to cultivate the friendships and family ties that we presently have? I think so.
2 thoughts on “Time….”
Jerry,
When, on occasion, I add one of my pieces of writing as an adjunct to your blog, I ask myself why I don’t just get me own space. Yet here I am again, adding a poem that you have heard before, but one that seems pertinent to your thoughts on time and on this annual event. Sorry.
New Year’s Eve
We are here, on his evening,
this evening that,
for whatever reason,
we have chosen as both
starting gate and finish line
for earth’s yearly
turn around the sun.
We are here, in this house
on this night,
ten days past solstice,
as the light begins
to chip away at winter’s
darkness, bit by bit, and
move us towards spring.
We are here, in this room
eating, drinking, laughing.
The cold night kept at bay
and for a few hours,
the troubles of our world
placed on a shelf,
out of sight.
We are here, at this moment,
this end and this beginning.
This present.
Each of us on our own road,
our own separate past and
unknown future,
intersecting here.
And that we are here
at this end
and this beginning,
on this evening,
in this house,
in this room,
at this moment,
is all that will ever really matter.
“Light chipping away at darkness…” That’s as much as we can do, as we anticipate what 2019 will bring. I like the poem a lot and I do not believe that I have heard it before. i think that you’d enjoy using your own space. You’d have added incentive to write, a journal of sorts of your thoughts in response to the ever changing world. Not everyone cares enough to do the work of writing well. Go for it!