Definitely not the kind of quote you wanted to wake up to on a Saturday morning.
Let’s look at it more clearly because we don’t often look at it very clearly.
Friday morning when I walked out the front door, it was six degrees. I locked the door and started walking down the stoop, only to be greeted by the remnants of the Snow moon.
We missed February’s full moon this week because of cloud cover, but the sky was clear and cold Friday morning.
The reflection off of the fresh snow made everything bright. The moon was hanging high enough over the western suburbs to illuminate my walk over to Betty the Green Blazer. I didn’t need my little pocket flashlight.
I have a village of Riverside gas lamp in front of the house that sat uniquely under the waning gibbous moon. It was a perfectly framed picture.
I was caught by the beauty that the moon brought to my street just before five o’clock in the morning that I didn’t feel the coldness of the clear February day.
I started the last day of the week seeing the beauty that life brings. Being doomed to the way of dusty death was the last thing on my mind.
Deadlines and time clocks set the pace as we strut and fret upon the stage of life. It keeps us from using our senses to notice the beauty life brings.
Instead of freezing my fat ass off going to work Friday morning…
… I stopped and stood there in the cold and looked at the moon shining down.
More and more of the Morning Chalkboards have been dedicated to pointing out that our days are numbered.
We are losing are parents.
We are losing our friends and colleagues.
We are losing our physical and mental resources that we once took for granted in our youth.
This is some heavy shit that keeps us from seeing the beauty around us.
Chalkheads my age should remember watching the “Gulliver’s Travels” cartoon during the Banana Splits television show.
There was a whining Lilliputian named Glum. Whenever the tiny little people of Lilliput had their tits in a ringer, Glum would point out that they were doomed.
His taglines were:
“It’s Hopeless!”
“It will never work!”
“We’ll never make it”
“Oh No, we’re doomed!”
Don’t be like Glum the Lilliputian.
This morning when I woke up, I looked out at the freshly fallen snow and saw the Riverside water tower in the distance.
I didn’t see all of the Danley garages and the alley lights. I saw a Robert Frost poem about the clean cover of snow covering the sleeping tower near the river.
I say “fuck it!”
If the doomsday clock is ticking louder to my eventual demise, I’m going to take the time to look at the moon.
I’m getting closer to seeing my parents again than I am to the day when I first met them.
I met them 21,414 days ago on the north side of Chicago and I figure I’ll see them up in heaven in roughly 10,000 days.
That means I can enjoy 10,000 more sunrises and sunsets. That also means that I have about 315 full moons left before I die.
You see Chalkheads… it ain’t cold anymore in February and it ain’t hot anymore in August.
This chair is perfect for my big butt, this porridge is the perfect temperature and this bed is firm enough yet soft enough for a lullaby.
What I’m saying is…
Be more like Goldilocks and less like Glum.
Be astonished and don’t feel doomed
