It's cheap magic, but it's all we've got......

Remember SOMEWHERE IN TIME?

I saw that movie with a very nice girl, back when I was a very nice guy.  Yeah, it's a chick flick, and yeah, there were parts that I made fun of (particularly the end, when I could help but hum the theme from SUPERMAN), but the film was done almost entirely at Mackinac Island, and I was a frequent visitor there.

I tell you that to tell you this.....it is incredibly easy to travel in time.

I did it a few days ago.

Of course, we all know that the senses are finely tuned  to memory; the sense of smell most finely tuned, they say.....but the others are, as well.

I was out on a walk the other morning; it was early.....I think about 5 AM.  The sun was just considering a trip over the horizon, and the temperature at that hour of the day is comfortable.  July can be unbearable in the Northern State, by the way......confirming in a way my belief that Mother Nature is Bi-Polar and in need of some pharmaceutical balance.....

In that moment, with the soundtrack of THIRTYSOMETHING coming through the earbuds and the smell of freshly mowed and watered lawns wafting through the early morning air, I was off, many years ago and many miles away......

Back to a time when I used to travel.  And I found joy in the travel.  And during those times, I would walk through early morning neighborhoods and look at houses and wonder what kind of people lived there....and I would live in strange houses and I would look for the spirits of those that had passed through the door before me......and I would wonder who I would meet, and what kind of script there would be to work, and what kind of audiences there would be to woo and to win.....

But on this particular day, it was flashing back to the late summers in the Show Me.  The time between the end of the summer contract, and the arrival of the students.  A kind of quiet that only comes at that particular time of the year.....the slight melancholy at the end of the performing season, and the anticipation of the new challenges in education.

In those brief moments, the only responsibility is to the pleasure of walking.  Of taking a deep breath of midsummer.  Of popping the cork and allowing the tension to pour out.

The day could've gone to Hell in a Handbasket after that and I wouldn't have noticed.

Abrakadabra.