The Long and Short of It

“The days are long, the years are short” is the prevailing wisdom and I can testify that there’s truth there. That 24-year-old woman I once courted is now my 75-year-old wife, my sweet little children are in their 40’s, my beloved granddaughter will get her driver’s license in a few short years. My “recent” retirement after 45 years teaching at a school is already 5 (!) years ago, so yes, those annual rotations around the sun are indeed whizzing by and seem to get faster with each circumambulation.

 

At the same time, I had a dream last night of my high school and that felt, oh so long ago. Indeed, another lifetime altogether. When I’m filling out a form and pull down the drop-down menu for my birth year, it’s a long, long journey back to 1951. So perhaps it’s equally true that “the days are short and the years are long.”

 

I’m trying to imagine human life before mirrors, clocks and calendars, before photos documenting so much of the passing show. How did people think about time and the passing years then? Did they peek into a lake once in a blue moon and think, “Damn! I’m old!” Did they have a life-expectancy number in their head and get anxious as the numbers tumbled toward it? I’ll never know.

 

Then there’s the Buddhist notion that there’s simply one moment and that moment is now. For me, this now is a ferry rolling over the waves in Hong Kong harbor toward Discovery Island for yet another day of teaching. An overcast, drizzly, dreary sky, the tall buildings to my left lined up like dominoes, millions of lives playing out their drama behind those thousands of windows. The eternally present moment could be my 8-year old self on the Staten Island Ferry going to visit my grandparents, my 22-year-old self taking a boat to Formentera on my first trip to Europe, my 28-year-old self crossing the English Channel to Germany at the start of a one-year-odyssey around the world, my 38-year-old-self taking the ferry to Peaks Island, Maine with my young family for a summer gathering, my 45-year old self on the Larkspur Ferry going to meet my aging parents for lunch, my 58-year-old self taking a boat up the Bosporus from Istanbul on a day off from teaching Orff workshops. Each a unique point in time and each the same moment replayed.

Both so long ago and yesterday.

 

One notion of our human incarnation is crossing the sea of life from our birth to our death, so wherever we may be, whenever we may be there, whoever we are there with, the only proper response is a deep and abiding gratitude that we are here for the trip. That’s as good a punch line as any. The long and short of it is that I am grateful. For all of it. The rough seas and calm, the overcast days and the sunny, the empty seat next to me and the beloved friend. Praise to it all!

 

And now, on to today’s classes.