|synaptic disunion|

Thursday, December 20, 2007

a childhood dream...

When I was a child, I visualized time. Time existed in blocks, representing years, set vertically against a void. Months existed as horizontal lines of blocks, within the larger year blocks, days existed as horizontal lines of blocks within the month blocks, hours as vertical blocks within day blocks, minutes, seconds, and so on. The present drifted upward, toward the end of the millennium. I visualized boundaries. I could see time. I still see it that way today, in my child-like mind.

As a child, I once dreamed that I climbed to the top of a windswept mountain top, on the eve of the new year. It was cold, harsh, and so very old. The wind was the past, blowing time away behind me, and when I reached the summit, I turned my face to the wind, to watch the boundary that I'd envisioned in my mind come rushing toward me. I held fast to the ice covered trees, my little hands freezing in the gale, and my hair being covered in the blowing snow and ice. Eyes ever forward, though. I had to see it. The passing of a boundary of my own invention.

I often think of that dream. Of watching the clouds clear after the wind cleaned the air of the past, and brought the future. I remember thinking, this is new. This time is new. This hasn't been before. In my naiveté I expected change. I expected the future. I expected too much. Over the years, though I still see those boundaries flying past me each year, I find that change comes at a pace much slower and harder to visualize. Because of this, our perceptions of what has changed over time, goes unnoticed. It is only by looking back, that we can tell where we've been, and what has changed. To enact change in the future, we have to understand and remember the past fully, completely, and unedited. Don't gloss over the bad times. Don't forget the pain and the anguish. What we forget, weakens us. What we forget, we are bound to repeat.

As, in my mind, we slide downward through the minute, day, and month blocks of the 2007 block, my wish is that as we open the door to the 2008 block, and the screaming gale force wind of the past sweeps history behind us, that we take a snapshot of all that has come before us, and remember for the future.

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate it, and Happy New Year!

Photo Courtesy: Greg Hegman

: toadman : at Thursday, December 20, 2007 |