My response to this lovely invitation to create a prose of purposeful remembrance was less than enthusiastic.
The rebel in me screamed "NO I will not do that; I can not, will not, write a poem, I have no rhyming tones or groans.............." But I am older now, and calmer, and not so rebellious and stubborn, and I have, at long last, given my temper to God. I mailed it - packed it up in a box and took it to the post office....I didn't have it insured - didn't care if it got lost - in fact I so didn't care, that I left the return address off of the label.
I did succomb to temptation though - able to resist the urge but for a minute - and googled poems about turning 50. Those of you who are swift thinkers will figure out very quickly that if she is 50 - then I am 52. Or soon will be.
"at one time i would have not believedthat i could have livedto reach this agebut youth is never notedfor dealing with the pangs of mortalityneither is fiftythe trick is to pretendthat where you are in lifeis where you have always been,perhaps that is the illusionwhich keeps us sane"
That is my googled turning 50 poem. I did not write it, and I only shared a little bit with you, and no I didn't purposely not punctuate it, that is just how it pasted.........but it did ring a bell in my head...the line - 'the trick is to pretend that where you are in life is where you have always been' .
I have never really thought of that - in those words - where I am is where I've always been. Why does that fit so well? Why does last week feel so far away. And last year - well like it was yesterday. Time seems to stand still and fly - both - at the same time. It's a phenomenon.
Evangeline and Wesley moved home last Thursday, 3 days before the poem deadline. Time came to a screaching halt, and stood there, looking me in the eye - taunting me to just try to return to life as it had been. And then the last surviving computer died. And the trick was - to pretend that the way things were at that moment was the way they had always been. Because to know that things were different now, would mean, a new adjustment, a different routine, or no routine, or no adjustment, just constant un predictable behavior and response and.........hanging there - in mid air. My home away from home.
Back to the poem - I put words to her altime favorite piano performing hymn......and talked our youngest sis into signing to it....everyone laughed, and let out a sigh of relief...they were supposed to see it as humourous.
And now I am home, and time is both flying by and things are as they have always been. At least that is how it seems.
