LAST SUNDAY, right after an early morning walk, a light breakfast, and some chores, we decided to leave the house, opting for someplace cooler. The house had been an oven lately and I was fervently wishing in the back of my mind, that there ought to be a little drizzle to enjoy as much as possible.
Then I remembered, further up north of the country at that moment, heavy rains and strong winds were a-pounding and tearing up the place, I instantly regretted how selfish that little wish had been. Then, an imaginary little red devil in my head whispered, why can’t one just look forward to tiny blessings anymore, without being reminded of what others have to endure? The beginning of the end for him perhaps, this old man’s growing a conscience.
Alas, the temperature at the mall, though full of Sunday strollers, was way off in contrast to the scorching noonday sun outside. With my guilt-ridden red devil curled in deep slumber, I forgot about everything else and how like the child in my younger days who’d spent too much time in the sun, I now enjoyed how it suddenly got cold.
Right at the moment I stepped into the mall threshold, I was good; with nothing else to look forward to anymore. In that cool element, I was already contented enough to just be dragged around wherever the missus wanted to go. Truth be told, I’ve become so unlike the many two or three-year-olds who appeared to be let loose about the place, with silly but nonetheless admiring parents a few steps behind busy filming their tots’ unfolding misadventures.
At least for these adorable little angels, what a grand new world to conquer! Their eyes say it all, wide at the sight of so many bright lights and gleaming at seeing before them wide open spaces to run around. Like wild horses, I thought, and here I was, already headed to pasture.
As we sat to rest awhile and waited for our order of donuts and coffee, my mind drifted off to how a musician and friend had wrapped it all up in one sentence not so long ago: the time’s up for us now, it’s now for us to just simply sit and watch. He was then referring to the influx of younger idealistic players who had come to share the same dreams.
In the broader sense, his words might as well hold true to where we old schoolers were nowadays, with a parade of young bloods coming, we’ve just to sit, wait and watch. In that case, I mused, those donuts better not keep me waiting.
In the end, symbolic as the whole afternoon has turned out, it’s true a certain lighting up of my grey world has come, almost akin to just-set Christmas lights at the neighbors’. There will always be a constant parade before my eyes: children laughing and playing, teens with stories to tell and songs to sing, and old and older folks to either shake or validate your existence a bit. All just to simply imply: hold fast, the world turns and it’s all beautiful.
