Baubles

I take it all back.  Every bad thing I’ve ever said.  At least, all the bad things about cable tv.  Comcast is replaying all the Cubs post-season victories.  So, safe in the knowledge that Ralphie will indeed get his gun, we’ll leave TBS to their annual Christmas Story marathon.  This North-side marathon has been more than century in the making.  Or so I’m told, having only witnessed a half-century myself.

I thought I’d missed the World Series at home with the family but, here it is.  Luggage in the bedroom used to mean I was back from some conference.  If all of life is a learning experience, I suppose it still could.  The post-season classic is on tape delay, while the always in season day job is tucked in my back pocket, in the form of the cell phone with the 831 area code.   

Back at the homestead, Christmas is mostly the same, but for the boys of summer in blue and rain instead of snow (I thought the Electoral College decided climate change wasn’t a thing, anymore?).  The offspring don’t wake quite as early for the Santa-gasm these days, and the gifts demonstrate much more refinement, but they’re just as heartfelt.  Amanda gets me a vintage Cubs graphic to go with office décor and Colin proffers a new, unwrapped 8-track tape that Ford used to supply when you bought a car.  Saweet.  Now, I just need a 70 Mach 1 in Chestnut (here) or a 66 T-bird in Medium Palomino Metallic (here) with a factory 8 track.    

Who am I kidding?  I don’t need anything.  Still, it’s fun to crank up autotraderclassics.com and search around.      

What’s not quite as much fun is watching the same arguments, about the same stuff, by the same people.  In the old day job, I mean.  I saw the same thing when I went back to visit the prior two gigs.  The same arguments by the same people, with the same results.  My goodness.  If the Cubs can bemusedly try not to suck their way out of a 108-year rut, what’s stopping everyone else?  Including me, by the way.  It’s easy - way too easy - to get sucked back into the fight. 

At least I get to leave.  And come back, with some new perspective from someplace else.  So here it is.  Time is mostly an illusion.  Just because we all agree on a calendar doesn’t make it so.  Colin’s first home run.  David Ross’ last home run.  First time I saw either or most recent time I recalled them are, essentially, the same.  Amanda’s first concert, most recent concert or memories of any in between.  The same.  Quad City Times editorial snark.  Timeless. 

I suspect time is on my mind not just because of how that 10th inning is on a continuous loop in my head or those Christmas morning steps down the stairs beat in my heart, but because it’s coming up on the time I last sat with Dad, talking.  Between Christmas and New Year’s, so said the calendars.  His body only had a double digit allotment of mortal hours left when he told me he still felt like a teenager.  The body was in grave straits, the mind and spirit were still sharp.  I held his hand and told him I Ioved him, while remembering happy times gone by and projecting bright times ahead. 

Surrounded by love at home, it’s clear that time is an illusion; that time is simply and always, only what we make of it.