Double Exposure

Sometimes I take pictures of my family in the evenings, sitting with their occupations: books, or toys, mother with child, child with trucks.  I take pictures to remind my future Self of a time when I was happy--when nothing was wrong, when the troubles that inevitably arise have not yet bared their fangs.


And yet, behind these pictures, I am also often sad.  The causes are small, but numerous: petty slights, personal struggles, lost opportunities, failed efforts, grieving friends.  My children grow, and I mourn the loss of each month while still rejoicing in the next.


Meanwhile, I maintain the pragmatic expectation that true troubles lie ahead.  We will be sick, or hungry, or there will be injury and fear, or there will be discord and conflict.  Life is a wheel that does not stay fixed in place.


When those days come, I will look back on these happy times and I will forget the small troubles that now loom so strangely large.  And in the light of this expectation, this analytic likelihood, I am warmly reminded of how small my current troubles truly are.  In context, a coin can be the size of the Sun; but it is not the size of the Sun.


Therefore, I take my pictures of these trouble-free days, these splendid times, this golden age--and in the view forced by this simple click, my troubles dim to gray.








Sep. 2016

Escape

We are distracted.
I fear, someday, we'll glance up
from our phones, from photos of
old friends, regrets, missed opportunities--
only to find there's no one left
who's ever challenged trouble.


There will be a discourse, we
will have memes about it, asking when
that last person died, who
(when Life inevitably dealt
a shattering blow)
put up her arms, hit back,
attacked: fierce with bloodlust, shrieking
for her rights, her freedom, her
way of life.


Because the rest of us chose
other paths. We felt the pain
and shrank back, back,
scuttling into the dark crevice
of our phones, our memories,
our games and stories, our
artwork and arrogance and
wine, our sex, our cigarettes,
back deep within the coolness
of a cave where Life could not reach.


We're often there already; only time
is left until we stay there fully:
totally escaped, where Life
can never touch us. But
then what: grief? or celebration?








Sep. 2016