May. 08, 2002 - 13:48 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Shades Of The Past

The following is something that has come into my mind from looking at John Bailey's light and shade pictures and reading his poetry.

Regression sometimes is good. I have an old Ziggy cartoon that has a bit of sense, "Just because you shouldn't live in the past doesn't mean its not a nice place to visit ! !" So, that's me today. Mellow and regressing to about ten years and earlier of age and watching the day pass me by as it did back then.

Then, I woke up to daylight, usually sunny, anticipating all the neat things I would see and do that day. I would embark on the day, not really noticing the position of the sun other than having an inkling when certain times had arrived. Shadows lengthening and shortening as our world turned. Noon was determined more or less by my stomach but was noticed in passing that the sun was overhead.

Each change in shadow produced a change in my outlook, not necessariy raising my spirits nor lowering them. Just seeming to fit me in the place and mood where I should be at that specific time. Before I could tell time, the changing shadows cast by the sun would tell me when nap time was nearing. Not that I wanted to nap especially, as I remember it naps were ferociously fought by this stinker.

Later on without being conscious of it I could tell it was about time for the kids from school to pass by our house. An event for me it was. Longing to be one of them and impatient for the passing of time until I could be a schoolboy.

Playtime in our neighborhood after school and as the sun began its real Westing period the shadows would tell me that soon Mom and Dad would be home from work.

When I was real small nap time occurred a bit before the kids got out of school. When I was a little older I watched the day begin to wind slowly down.

The period just before twilight I noticed more when away from my house. It was eerie to me in a way, the element of strangeness was accentuated by the shadows cast in the house by the sun. It was like the autumn of the afternoon with evening winter sleep not to far ahead. I really wasn't ready for night to come, though card games, puzzles and reading occupied the evening there was an element of hostility to darkness. I didn't have night terrors and only nightmared when delerious with fever, yet dark seemed to uncomfortably hem me in. One of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems consoled me when it was read to me -- wish I could remember its name, it more or less dealt with the full panoply of history with its glitter and glamour.

For me the approach of evening elicits Shades Of The Past . . . . . . .

Blog