It was dark as I drove home after last night’s discussion at Iola Public Library. Hard to believe it’s already fall; the days are shorter, the pulsing scream of cicadas a mere memory.
Just as I was pulling onto Cottonwood, a series of lightning bolts flashed across the sky, lighting up everything around me as bright as high noon. It was an incredible sight, the clouds framed by an intense burst of light.
I got home and waited outside my car for more of the display, but nothing came. It was just that, a flicker of brilliance, and then it was gone.
THE moment has stayed with me. It caught my attention, and it got me thinking about how life is full of just these amazing little moments: a child’s smile, a special friendship, a quiet place to return to. If I’m not careful, they’ll pass me right by. They don’t come back.
I recently finished reading Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” a three-act play that portrays life in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners at the beginning of the 20th century. Much of what I felt Thursday night was matched in the play.
On his wedding day, a young George, on the verge of panic, says, “Ma, I don’t want to grow old. Why’s everybody pushing me so?”
His mom’s answer? “Why George, you wanted it.”
At the end of the play, the ghost of a young woman, Emily, looks beyond the grave as her twelfth birthday unfolds before her. As her mother calls the children to breakfast and the chaos of another morning begins, the ghost can’t watch any more of it. “I can’t go on,” she says in despair. “It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.”
As the ghost departs, she laments, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”
The main character responds, “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”
SUCH is life, most of us with our attention consumed by trivial affairs and constant worries. I think of my children. We just bought them new shoes, and as I gripe about the expense, I fail to see this means they’re growing up, growing away from me. Lucas doesn’t hold my hand near as much anymore.
The fun in my job comes from holding the life of a small town still for a while. With photos and articles, we capture something that would fade. We share a moment’s relevance with others. The challenge is how to do that with our own lives, how to take the time to really look at one another.
This is the life we have, every, every minute of it. Our growing up and marrying and living and dying. That we be so lucky as those saints and poets.
