Morning:
I know a place where the view never gets old. The back deck faces almost due east, and at daybreak, the sky glows with promise, especially today because we’re at the summer solstice, the first full day of summer and the longest day of the year. There’s both promise and warning here: the forecast promises sunny and warm (but not too warm!) weather, perfect for a wedding ceremony later in the day. But warning, too: we’ve turned another planetary corner and now, we’re headed back into darkness. It will take months to get there, but this turning is as inevitable as it is worrisome. Time is passing…
But let’s just take today as it comes. Two young people will be taking the plunge, joining their lives and families together in ties that bind, no matter what may come. That is worthy of celebration and more— of hope. God knows we need all the hope we can get these days, and so we’ll witness their vows, then sing and dance ’til the cows come home, and since it’s the summer solstice, I’m sure those cows will be celebrating until the wee hours of another morning. That’s how it should be, isn’t it?
Noon:
There was a time when I believed I was made of iron, and that the universe was a benevolent place, capable of human manipulation. I stood atop mountains and surveyed my domains like Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or even Louis XIV, the “Sun King.” But now I think I was more like Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s fabled “King of Kings,” whose “frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command” said everything there was to say about mortal hubris, but nothing about the ravages of time. When a traveler from an antique land stumbled upon a crumbling statue in the desert, all that remained of Ozymandias’ was his shattered visage and the haunting inscription on the statue’s pedestal: “Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!” On that day, this once great king of kings was trunkless and decayed, a “colossal wreck,” in an empty landscape “boundless and bare,” where “the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
But I didn’t know any of that at my noon. Then, there was more daylight ahead of me than behind, so I went blithely about my own business, deaf to the barely audible ticking of the clock. It seemed to me there was time enough for everything, and everything seemed possible. If there were thunderstorms on the horizon, I didn’t see them coming my way. I just rowed merrily along on a boundless incoming tide, oblivious to rapids that lay upriver.
Night:
And now it’s getting dark, the sun is setting. The evening light glows warm and lovely, but it also hides the stones that lie beneath the surface and the shadows that lurk along the riverbank. I need to find a place to rest for the night.
A few days ago, I learned that someone I once cared for deeply had died. That was bad enough, but to make matters worse, she had died two years ago, the victim of a cruel and relentless disease. And I never knew she was gone; I didn’t feel her passing in my bones. The whispering universe that had once been my friend forgot to tell me of her struggle and pain. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything about that, but I just should have known. I would like to have been able to say goodbye to her, if only to myself.
I’ll be right back.
Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores. His website is musingjamie.net.
