I was ruminating in front of this giant computer screen (I'm not kidding, it's HUGE), mourning the loss of my ability to put words together to form sentences that even I find interesting, listening to my ITunes application paw through the various music on my computer, when it came across an memory....
Kenny Loggins - Celebrate Me Home.
Several flashes of memory, mostly focusing on those celebratory returns to home; most of them focused upon the winter months.....largely because there's snow on the ground, some in the air, and the air temperatures would make Jesus slap the weatherman.
Christmas came and went; lots of family, lots of food, lots of gifts, lots of warmth....
First Christmas without that one phone call; that one call, imagining the old man wearing a Santa cap, simultaneously complaining about it, and grinning about it.
That house on the small hill now empty and silent. Waiting for the next occupants to create their memories.
And I had a brief 'conversation' with an old friend about the desire to return to home; and how was I going to survive without my annual pilgrimage to Lipuma's Coney Island on Main Street for an infusion of the best worst food in the known world?
It is a known fact that this road really only goes in one direction; and while you may look back through that strange, somewhat distorted reflection in the rear-view mirror, the tolls must be paid and the movement must be forward.
But my mind rebels at that kind of ultimatum.
I've always had a ridiculous relationship with time.
I've traveled most of my adult life; one place to another, one job to another. Even when I was centralized, I still ran down the river at the first available opportunity, to see what was around that next bend; a new experience; a new role, a new audience.
And there are some lovely benefits to such behavior; oh, the places you'll go! Oh, the things you will see! My education was never complete......
And some drawbacks: I did not see the time passing; I did not heed the setting of the sun.
I did not see people age, or place disappear until it was too late to pay tribute to those events.
And for a while I was convinced that those images and those stories and those moments, TRAPPED IN AMBER in my mind would suffice.
I did not consider that they would conspire to attempt to drive me to madness.
And there's Kenny Loggins again, telling me to Keep the Fire Burning....
"Who are you?
Where are you?
You're not alone, it's so wonderful!"
Okay.
