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Exhilarating Impossibilities
I forgot my lunch today. Actually, I forgot it several times, including last night. You see, I was supposed to buy the things that I would need to make my lunch last night. However, in the excitement of getting the new book, I forgot to buy my lunch supplies. When I arrived home and realized this, it seemed like far too much effort to go back to the store, so I decided that I would buy my lunch today, and then buy the things I would need to make lunches for the rest of the week tonight.
Of course, like all plans, this one did not survive the first engagement. Mainly, when I went to leave this morning, I turned out of my driveway in the same direction I always do. Which happens to be directly away from all of the grocery stores. There are no grocery stores between me and work. Worse, I did not notice this until I was almost to work. What should have been a five minute detour would now be a 20 minute drive. Not to be deterred by this, I decided that would simply go buy my lunch at lunchtime, something that most people do regularly, but I do rarely.
I think this is simply one of those things that was fated to be. It was very nice to get out of the office for a time--in fact I'm still out of the office as I write this, since I am sitting at my home computer using ViaVoice--it is a lovely day, very sunny but not quite too hot for me, although I did turn the air conditioning on in the car a little after it had sat in the sun. On the way over to the store, I heard this song--You know the one--" Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender "?
At any rate, it has a line in it, "they say in the end it's the wink of an eye. " The line refers to the length of life or the length of some experience, and it made me think that life is not a wink and I need to remember all of things that have happened that have brought me joy over time.
I cast my mind back to childhood, and I remember that my parents got me a swing set, which stood in the yard. It was anchored in concrete--it was a full-sized swing set meant for several kids--with two swings, a trapeze bar, gymnastics rings, a slide, and the monkey bars that led across. I have fond memories of those monkey bars, and my fear.
I used to hang from those monkey bars by my knees, because all the children did it and you weren't supposed to be afraid to, but I was afraid. Most of the children who were afraid were scared that they would fall to the ground and hurt themselves--I realize that now. When I was afraid it was because I had looked at the sky. My sense of balance and orientation is fairly weak, and it was even as a child, so when I hung by my knees from those monkey bars down became up and up became down. And I would look into the great bright blue of the sky, and I would know that if my knees slipped from their perch, I would fall into the sky and fall forever ... forever.
I never did, of course. Fall into the sky, that is. Or, for that matter, fall to the ground. I think that the latter would hurt my sense of reality more than the former, at the time. As it is, I would get down off the bars, and with up and down restored to their proper places I would look up at the wide blue sky, and lift my arms to it, and long to fly away into its open spaces. But with down now firmly pointed at the Earth, what had been a terrifying option up side down became an exhilarating impossibility right side up.
I dedicate today to exhilarating impossibilities.
Of course, like all plans, this one did not survive the first engagement. Mainly, when I went to leave this morning, I turned out of my driveway in the same direction I always do. Which happens to be directly away from all of the grocery stores. There are no grocery stores between me and work. Worse, I did not notice this until I was almost to work. What should have been a five minute detour would now be a 20 minute drive. Not to be deterred by this, I decided that would simply go buy my lunch at lunchtime, something that most people do regularly, but I do rarely.
I think this is simply one of those things that was fated to be. It was very nice to get out of the office for a time--in fact I'm still out of the office as I write this, since I am sitting at my home computer using ViaVoice--it is a lovely day, very sunny but not quite too hot for me, although I did turn the air conditioning on in the car a little after it had sat in the sun. On the way over to the store, I heard this song--You know the one--" Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender "?
At any rate, it has a line in it, "they say in the end it's the wink of an eye. " The line refers to the length of life or the length of some experience, and it made me think that life is not a wink and I need to remember all of things that have happened that have brought me joy over time.
I cast my mind back to childhood, and I remember that my parents got me a swing set, which stood in the yard. It was anchored in concrete--it was a full-sized swing set meant for several kids--with two swings, a trapeze bar, gymnastics rings, a slide, and the monkey bars that led across. I have fond memories of those monkey bars, and my fear.
I used to hang from those monkey bars by my knees, because all the children did it and you weren't supposed to be afraid to, but I was afraid. Most of the children who were afraid were scared that they would fall to the ground and hurt themselves--I realize that now. When I was afraid it was because I had looked at the sky. My sense of balance and orientation is fairly weak, and it was even as a child, so when I hung by my knees from those monkey bars down became up and up became down. And I would look into the great bright blue of the sky, and I would know that if my knees slipped from their perch, I would fall into the sky and fall forever ... forever.
I never did, of course. Fall into the sky, that is. Or, for that matter, fall to the ground. I think that the latter would hurt my sense of reality more than the former, at the time. As it is, I would get down off the bars, and with up and down restored to their proper places I would look up at the wide blue sky, and lift my arms to it, and long to fly away into its open spaces. But with down now firmly pointed at the Earth, what had been a terrifying option up side down became an exhilarating impossibility right side up.
I dedicate today to exhilarating impossibilities.