Life Lessons

We wait all winter for the summertime.

We imagine it, yearn for it, picture it, plan for it.

We say this year is going to be different.

Then it arrives. And it's beautiful.

Yet we can't seem to do a damn thing with it.

We try. We work so hard to live up to it, to match its opulence and elegance.

We try so hard to make it last.

But it won't give itself to us. It's not ours, we can't own it. And it moves away, slips through our fingers.

Winter, on the other hand, offers us all an eternal embrace.

...........................................


There's an older teen on my block who often squats, with his elbows resting on his knees, just a couple feet from the street, on a grassy area near a corner intersection.

He's there almost everyday.

Some days he just squats and stares, other days he talks on his cellphone. Sometimes he sits down on the curb and looks down at the street. He's always alone, often wearing a t-shirt and black jeans, and from time to time, a cigarette dangles from his lips.

I have come to view this corner as his office.

He intrigues me. He seems angry, aloof, a loner, ready to pounce in one direction or another but unsure which way to go, where and when to strike.

I think someone should paint his portrait.

I fear one day I'll drive by and he'll be gone, and there'll be eerie telltale signs of an alien abduction, or just a small pool of blood and one lone torn t-shirt. Or, perhaps a note, saying he's found what he was looking for in life and is gone forever. Maybe I'll find a new teen in his place, one to whom he's passed the torch.

...........................................


I flew back from Peru about ten days ago, after a two week stay in the Andes. Flying over the sea I decided to don my life jacket, and wrestled it out from under my seat. Within minutes a flight attendant was asking me what I thought I was doing. She said life vests were to be kept under the seats for emergencies. I told her the odds of me being able to fumble with one in the midst of a crash were slim, might as well get it on now and leave it on until we're over dry land. Well, she would have none of it and asked me to please put it back where I'd found it.

I refused.

Soon another flight attendant arrived and said by wearing the vest I risked upsetting other passengers, she said what I was doing could frighten them. I said if my being safety conscious upset people whose problem was that, mine or theirs?

The next airline staff member to arrive was the co-pilot himself. He asked what I thought I was trying to prove. I said if anymore airline personnel got involved we'd all be needing life vests as our crewless craft barreled into the ocean.

Am I missing something here? Aren't prudent safety measures to be rewarded, not condemned. Centrifigal force alone would prevent me from getting to a vest in the event of a crash. Why was I a security threat? Why wasn't I a model passenger?

I'll give the airline this much: They were probably within their rights taking away the flare gun.