I've been consumed by thoughts of the people in my life who are going through trials and are too far away to hug.
I find it strange to think that over the years I have compartmentalized people from my past. I've put some in safe places doing safe things, and some I've put in far off lands doing imaginative things. Few people are curious enough to do the later and I've found myself wrong about many in that respect. It's sad when you find out you've put someone in the wrong compartment and the life you thought they were living has turned out to be as mundane as the next.
Here is a toast to Bambi. When I was a child I watched her from my front yard as she flitted about in her beautiful peasant skirt, flirting with her bronzed shirtless boyfriend, her long shimmering blonde hair swaying with her every move. She ran off with him one day. Bambi's parents were upset and the police showed up to take a report. Soon things quieted down and a few years later she showed up in an old Impala with a couple little blonde cherubs in tow. Bambi was still as beautiful as I had remembered. She and the children stayed a few days and then they were gone.
I never saw her again until one evening I happen to be back in my hometown for some reason or another. It was cold out, I do remember that and I was meeting a friend of mine at what used to be called The Fireside for a drink. An older woman who was quite striking came over to take our drink order. She looked a bit weathered but her piercing blue eyes drew me in. I felt I knew her and told her so. When she explained who she was I felt the thrill of anticipation. I wanted to hear her stories of running off to the west coast with her man, of wandering the streets of Haight-Ashbury, of the Summer of Love, and of birthing her beautiful little tow headed flower children.
She gave me a confused look as I rambled about the life I had imagined for her and then her look turned to one of disappointment and sadness. Her reality she said, was one of scraping by on a little farm at the outskirts of town with an alcoholic husband and too many mouths to feed. That she wished they had been courageous enough to have followed their dreams but fear had kept them close to what they knew. Now we were both sad. I for telling of my childhood dreams and she for telling of her sad reality.
Today though I have put her in a different place. I have always believed that people traverse our lives for a reason. Sometimes the miracle happens in an instant and sometimes the miracle takes a lifetime or two. The extension of a kind word can inspire a change of heart and so to a change of mind. Even though there was sadness in knowing one dream had come to an end there was also the revelation of the dream to a saddened heart and the gift of hope for a new beginning.
I find it strange to think that over the years I have compartmentalized people from my past. I've put some in safe places doing safe things, and some I've put in far off lands doing imaginative things. Few people are curious enough to do the later and I've found myself wrong about many in that respect. It's sad when you find out you've put someone in the wrong compartment and the life you thought they were living has turned out to be as mundane as the next.
Here is a toast to Bambi. When I was a child I watched her from my front yard as she flitted about in her beautiful peasant skirt, flirting with her bronzed shirtless boyfriend, her long shimmering blonde hair swaying with her every move. She ran off with him one day. Bambi's parents were upset and the police showed up to take a report. Soon things quieted down and a few years later she showed up in an old Impala with a couple little blonde cherubs in tow. Bambi was still as beautiful as I had remembered. She and the children stayed a few days and then they were gone.
I never saw her again until one evening I happen to be back in my hometown for some reason or another. It was cold out, I do remember that and I was meeting a friend of mine at what used to be called The Fireside for a drink. An older woman who was quite striking came over to take our drink order. She looked a bit weathered but her piercing blue eyes drew me in. I felt I knew her and told her so. When she explained who she was I felt the thrill of anticipation. I wanted to hear her stories of running off to the west coast with her man, of wandering the streets of Haight-Ashbury, of the Summer of Love, and of birthing her beautiful little tow headed flower children.
She gave me a confused look as I rambled about the life I had imagined for her and then her look turned to one of disappointment and sadness. Her reality she said, was one of scraping by on a little farm at the outskirts of town with an alcoholic husband and too many mouths to feed. That she wished they had been courageous enough to have followed their dreams but fear had kept them close to what they knew. Now we were both sad. I for telling of my childhood dreams and she for telling of her sad reality.
Today though I have put her in a different place. I have always believed that people traverse our lives for a reason. Sometimes the miracle happens in an instant and sometimes the miracle takes a lifetime or two. The extension of a kind word can inspire a change of heart and so to a change of mind. Even though there was sadness in knowing one dream had come to an end there was also the revelation of the dream to a saddened heart and the gift of hope for a new beginning.
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