 - Chasing Water...
Childhood is a precious and wonder-filled time. When I was a child the pace of life, even in the larger cities, was slower than today's craziness. Where I grew up there were fields and orchards to walk barefoot in, feeling the cool earth between your toes; barbed-wire fences to climb through, hoping you wouldn't get caught on the upper strand; fields of alfalfa you could run hell-bent through, and once spent lie down in with your face to the Cerulean skies and feel the pain of the air entering and exiting your lungs. There was Miss Taylor, fourth grade, and Mr. Kirby, my fifth grade teacher. There were those games of marbles in big circles drawn in the dirt, and my favorite steelie in my hands, with the admonition not to play for keeps; those restless summer nights under a thin sheet, listening to the wail of a steam engine in the distant darkness, as I awaited sleep; and those early pre-dawn mornings lying in bed, looking out through the east-facing window waiting for the sky to light up from the nuclear test in the Nevada desert...
Nostalgia is a funny thing - the way it colors our remembrances with a fuzzy glow, we have to look hard sometimes for the reality of it all. But, for my money, nostalgia is a good thing - when events and people are seen through the soft-focus lens of hindsight it gives them a softer edge, smooths out some of the wrinkles, and tempers the sometimes harsh view we hold of them and ourselves. It would not be to hold on to unreality, or anything false, but to retain the beauty of the experiences and the people. There is an ancient proverb that says, Take not the ashes from the fires of the past, but the flame... A good learning, that... |