I am simply stupefied at the sheer velocity of our existence. Yesterday, I was 6. Today I am 46. Tomorrow I will be 73. Just like that.
I watch in awe as a freight train thunders by me, yet in reality I am on that train, looking out the window as the countryside of my life, experiences, and relationships zips by.
It’s akin to the whisper-quiet experience riding on the Shinkansen or TGV – fast, noiseless, and less experiential than you want, unless you make an effort on your own part and “open the windows” in some manner. Otherwise, I cannot hear the movement in my ears, nor feel its passage in my toes, the seat of my pants or in the small of my back. Months, literally years go by in mute.
But I can “see” the changes if I make the effort to really look and increasingly be aware of the inexorable progress underway. Pudgy babies, turning to lanky youngsters, then questioning teenagers and finally delivered as pondering adults weighing the options in front of them and those left behind.
The 2009 trip to India made this painfully obvious, again. Why? Because it had been 5 years since the last visit and 13 since the first one with Molly. Cousins who were toddlers oblivious to the wealth of minutes around them were now in college pondering what lay beyond their graduation.
For some reason Stevie Nick’s song Landslide keeps looping between my ears, particularly where it goes…
I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
and I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Till the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life~~~
The Countryside Flies By
- - Abe Pachikara, © 2009, (Click for larger images)
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