One thing you get with a weeklong storm is down-time. Intermittent showers quickly turn into a downpour, which means taking a walk in the park is dicey. Driving anywhere is troublesome because of water on the road and the danger of a huge tree limb falling on your car. (Yes, that's a big personal fear. Call me crazy, but still.) There's lots of time for reading but even that gets old by the sixth day. Luckily, in my neighborhood the power has not gone out, so there's the dismal joy of too much TV, another thing I tire of quickly. And bottom line, how many on-line Scrabble games with strangers are really necessary?
So, back to the concept of down-time. Alone time, for those of us who live alone. Time to think. At this juncture, the beginning of a new year, thinking carries the danger of deep and possibly insightful rumination. Rumination sounds heavy and bleak. Maybe pondering the past would be better. Or even pondering the future.
At this point in life, past when one can claim to be "middle aged" and has advanced into the category of "elderly" (and how the hell did that happen?) the ponderings are usually about life in the past. Not future plans, although that should be a factor, but more about "how did I get here?" Especially, how did I get to be in this elderly category when my mind still pretends to be 55.
It is baffling. Not the mind part but the age part and the past. Too much time is spent thinking about what happened when and why. You always think you will remember things, the important things, like the baby's first step or buying the first house (or the second or third) or the time, the only time, you won a game of Scrabble with your brother. You hope you will remember the first time you fell in love, the first time you had sex, the first (and hopefully the last) time you were in the back of a police car. The first time you went to Paris.** When you graduated from college, when you bought your first real car, not the junker you could afford, but an honest car, and the first time someone called you "Momma."
But we don't remember all that much and it is now becoming apparent that the fact is just that: our memories are falling to the side of the road, like melting ice chips: just there, look! And then, gone.
Of course, most of the things mentioned above I do remember because how could I have listed them if I didn't? But so many years of my kids' lives are just a blur to me now. There are years in my life that I can't reconstruct time-wise and to try and reconstruct the reasons why I did certain things is impossible.
We all know the Faulkner line: The past is never dead. It's not even past." We are a culmination of everything that has happened to us and thus our past is never dead, we are living it. We can't change it but we also can't unlive it. Our past is us.
It's almost like there are two parallel universes here, one that we live now, our day-to-day life and another, the life that we chose a long time ago and it is still walking next to us, every day. What if we had chosen the 'other' thing, made an opposite decision? Those options are still ranging around in my mind, probably because they were not the ones I picked at that moment. Once you make a decision and your life takes that course, those other decisions don't simply vanish. They are still hovering overhead, tempting you, irrationally saying "hey, I'm still here, you can still pick me." And I believe they never leave.
This is not to say that I wish I had made different decisions along the way. Nope. Each choice made me who I am now. The things I remember, the results of those choices, are good. But all those other options are like a pillow case full of lofty air, not weighing me down but not letting me go either. I think they're there as a reminder: nothing is past. Everything is now, everything is present. Live it.
** To be honest, I do remember the first time I went to Paris. As I stepped out of the taxi from the airport, and put my foot on Rue Cler, I was overcome with this thought: "I have been here before. I will be fine." And I was.
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