ON THE MIND'S BACK PORCH


Some evenings, when the time and the weather are right, I love to go out on the deck, have a glass or two of wine and sit on my mind's back porch (it's a fine porch, by the time you reach my age) watch the broad sky unfold its right-now tapestries and let memories play on that high blue screen...

It's always surprising, what's showing there in spontaneity, the many things in my past that I bookmarked subconsciously in their moments – faces and events, places and emotions that turned out to be more important or magical than they then seemed - aspects I hadn't thought I noticed or remembered, even thought much of, at the time; but now that I relive them, how impressive, surprising and refreshing they are-- and how unknowingly observant I was being, even in the darkest times.

It's as though in the swift currents of the early heart I hadn't the experience to perceive all that those feelings and moments meant to me, but in some place older than myself I knew what they would mean one day, and stored them away. And now that I have time's gift, as well as the leisure in which to ponder and treasure - and sometimes regret - these distillations of a life and times, I am nourished as much by my failures as by my successes.

I suppose that is one of the many functions of the past, after all: to brighten the skies with the treasures of a lifetime, some far evenings on the mind's back porch.