All things must pass Friday, October 20, 2023
Heavy rain this morning, although the temperature remains
the same.
I stare out the window at the yard, at the bird feeders, at
the dog/cat houses, and the slowly changing leaves from our walls of ivy.
These are the mornings I crave most all the way back to when
I was a kid, this feeling of security inside, dry, warm, while still getting a
gander at the real world weather,
Pauly – had he lived – would be pontificating on the
imminent demise of the world, after having kept track of all possible natural
disasters, perhaps even setting a time clock as to when the volcanos in Iceland
would go off.
He’s always been a bit of a chicken little, believing all
the silly conspiracy theories that are being spread by people obsessed with the
idea of death, and insisting not to go alone.
It’s sort of how I felt back when working in the cosmetics
company, hoping that the company might fold so I would not have to resign.
I would modify Woody Allen’s statement about not wanting to
be around when his death came, to nobody wants to step off this mortal coil
alone when we can have some illusion of destruction such as climate change –
which is a bit hazier than our waiting for an asteroid to do us all in.
At my age, after having lost two of my four best friends,
the end of the world seems less tragic than it might have when I was younger.
Meanwhile, I just sit and stare as the rain drops pelt at
the windows and screens, grateful for being dry, and knowing that these are the
storm that bring about the change of season, too early for snow, and yet, with
reports of possible accumulation elsewhere north or west of us, as if we sit
and watch the coming doom from a place as yet still safe, but not forever.
I’ve grown nostalgic for the town I work in, having first
set foot there as a writer about 20 years ago, and realize the place I stumbled
into prior to Christmas in 2003 has long vanished, as is the simplicity of the
world I grew up in.
Almost all the World War II and Korean War vets that I knew
back then are gone, leaving a huge void in a community once seen as the most
patriotic in America.
We are watching a fundamental change in culture, perhaps
something not see since the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century, the suburban
white flight era of post WWII transformed into a rush back to the cities –
after severe criminal cases made cities safe again.
But this new urbanization is not like the one my great great
grandfather helped usher in, farms being converted into tracks of one-family
homes. Those homes are being bulldozed and up springs luxury complexes we old
timers can’t afford to live in, and even some younger people, as one report
indicated that some families are spending their entire income on rent, some of
whom show up at food pantries as another report suggests.
Needless to say, we – me and the friends I grew up with –
are the next generation to go, a hugely influential baby boomer generation whose
passing is leaving a black hole in the world I’m not yet sure society will know
how to fill. But as we leave, our influence fades, the culture that we brought into
the world 80 years ago, finally leaving after having influenced so much for so
long.
I think of George Harrison’s song as I watch the rain wash
clean the planet, how all things must pass, including me.
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