Tag: memories
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Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?
Have you ever wondered why things like pleasure and happiness, are so evanescent? For some things, we accommodate to their presence and after a while cease to notice them even though they are still present; pleasure is fleeting as well, and yet it is not simply because we no longer notice it, but rather because…
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Hope is patience with the lamp lit
Gregory had hope; how nebulous is that? He and his wife are my closest friends, but it was still difficult for me to talk about the changes that were beginning to thicken over them like shadows on a winter’s day -difficult for me, I guess, but perhaps not for them. “What do you expect us…
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Derivative Anger
I bumped into a Jessica the other day. She was standing at a corner of a busy street waiting for the little man to light up on the crosswalk sign. I hadn’t seen her for ages, but apart from the inevitable tell-tale wrinkles of a maturing face, she looked the same as she had when…
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And thereby hangs a tale
As I have begun to sense the shadows of my still unfolding epilogue, I’ve also come to appreciate the stories we elders tell to those around us. They do not always contain great wisdom, perhaps, and yet they bespeak the years of experience that have brought us this far. Sometimes, Age can teach the personal…
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The Raven himself is hoarse
Now that Time is exacting an increasing toll upon my ears, I’m beginning to become more sensitive to sounds. Not better able to hear them, of course, but more appreciative of what there is to hear; simple things that before would have passed unnoticed in the day, are suddenly treasures: the ringing timbre of a…
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Fear can neither fight nor fly
We are a vain species to be sure: the pinnacle of creation, the standard against which all else can and should be measured, the judge and jury of any trial. In fairness though, I suppose, we can only use what we were given, and our criteria are of necessity human criteria, so we assess the…
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The Path to Grandma’s house
There are many under-appreciated people in our lives, don’t you think? People without whom we might live a very different existence, or inhabit an unfamiliar mind. And, especially, there are those who have not only affected us, but also those who care for us: our families. I never thought of my grandmother like that, but…
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Like madness, is the glory of this life
My grandmother was old when she died -very old, in fact: she died on the morning after her 100th birthday party. Her congratulatory letter from the Queen -or at least someone official claiming to speak for her highness- came the day before. I’m not so sure it was congratulations, really -more a recognition that a…
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The Cloth of Words
Sometimes I wax nostalgic. Sometimes communication itself seems drab, with none of the makeup, none of the panache that identifies it as the look of someone I have grown to know. Emails, like strangers in standard-issue suits, knock at my door then talk from the other side of the threshold, neither wishing nor invited to…