I was well on my way to the Happily Ever After land
of conformers, contented to express their individuality in marketing terms such
as genres, styles and demography for easy sorting by their treat/threat
wielding handlers on K Street, Wall Street and Madison avenue. I’d checked off
all the requirements for passage on the good ship USS American Dream: College
Degree, Wife, Children, House, Two Cars and Career IBM Engineer halfway to
retirement. A firm grip on the carrot stick.
The hairline cracks in this fine porcelain
perfection came in barely recognizable forms. A conversation around the coffee
machine, repeating the same routine of retelling every moment on last night’s
edition of Johnny Carson since I’d worked there, may have been the first.
The metaphysically absurd act of a Dad"giving Junior everything he never had" |
My eldest daughter, retelling a her dream one morning, prompted me
to ask a silly question, to which she replied, “You know Daddy, you were
there.” Before the last word fell silent, I remembered having that very dream
my self … also … with her. Such
yet realized potential being sent to public school (from which I’d quit in
disgust before I’d found a bit and bridle more to my liking) seemed like sheep
to slaughter.
The American Coma |
Following the adventures of young Robin Graham,
whose parents trusted him enough to allow his solo, five year circumnavigation
of the planet in a twenty-four footer before he was 21 stirred deeply buried yearnings and speculative
pillow talk that started those same sort of cracks in my wife’s commitment to
“…for better or worse”. My curiosity about marijuana was her worst last straw
and the rest, as they say, is hysterical.
Here, forty years after our stake in the golden dream
was melted down and divided, the golden Sun rises to light the rapid rattle of
a woodpecker’s breakfast above me in a tree answered by the throaty throb of
toad call rippling across the pond behind me. The air is aflutter with tiny
petals departing the star of its flower to float down to drown in the pond or
cover last seasons chinaberry fruit already littering the ground all around. Doves
soothe the air with their cooing calling to one and all. The dogs and the
rooster next field over contribute their part in this never to be repeated concert on the theme
of now.
I could not have imagined or planned this moment and
I may very well have missed it if I had.
The stable dynamic of natural opposites |
•
A man is rich by the amount of things
A man is rich by the amount of things
he can afford to live without.
I like the new-found clarity in your words Dood - you took me with you on that journey.
ReplyDeleteAgain, insightful & thought-provoking.
ReplyDelete