By Kathy Guzman
No matter what we say or what we do, time turns baby, and no matter whom we are or what secret powers we possess – we age each time the sun surrenders to the all encompassing night. The twists and turns of this crazy ass life leave me wanting for more than all my ridiculously simple words can say. Coming upon cross road after cross road and more often than not finding myself wandering down paths I never imagined, in circumstances I never foresaw. My nomadic heart yearns for a new place and time, different views and possibilities. Tick tock….tick tock – someone stop that fucking clock.
I once said that looking back is never easy, so often so painful and bittersweet. The truth is that looking back reconfirms that looking forward is the only truth we have. The past is the past – the person we were – the places we lived – the people we knew and loved all in a once upon a time kind of place are no longer real in this very real and present time. Our youthful eyes and young lean bodies held opportunity new and irrational – unpredictable and alive; we lived large and complete with each passing moment. Our parents were young and successful, reaping in the rewards of middle class servitude in the Age of Aquarius and raising too many children in too few rooms and loving each and every moment of it. They were Mad Men and Jackie O and we were Brady Bunch and Beaver Cleaveresque, and times were free and easy in my little kid with an attitude state of mind.
Summers turn and memories burn and indeed one day I wake up and I am still alive – passing the age of 30 with a blink of my wide green eyes. Never thought this rebel without a cause would find a way to make it into my third decade. I lived too hard and drove too fast and took too many chances and participated in one too many unspotted leaps of faith. But somehow life held me close and kept me around to take on the role of wife and mother. My wild heart did not stop – did not change – did not conform – and in my own unique and loving way I carried on and did my best to raise two independent, free thinking children. I incorporated their lives into mine, taught them to look out for each other and to spend time with their grandparents, and to be kind and generous of spirit. Pre-school turned to prom and connect the dots became photo shop and suddenly fate has thrown another decade past my forever adolescent heart. Where does the time go? So cliché, but my friends, the question cannot be answered with any sort of satisfaction. Tick tock…..
Suddenly and without warning, as this road I travel winds into places yet unseen and my eternally youthful heart beats for things unknown, my body and my mind become strangers to me somehow. I pass the mirror and do not recognize the eyes looking back at me. My walk is not my walk, my perception challenged and reflection untrue. My children are not children and my parents are no longer young and free and all powerful. Laugh lines run deeper and scars show less character, stories are dated and facts just sweet fiction in a book that tells a story irrelevant to anyone but me. Time is not my friend – it belongs to no one and is most unkind to everyone. It is just the way life is. But still, we embrace it, we challenge it, we run from it and towards it and back again all at the same time. We try to live the best life we possibly can all the while hoping time doesn’t have the time to catch up to us this time.
I try to be optimistic. I try to keep that glass half full. But in all my truth that I dare share – I know very little for certain. I do know that life is fleeting at best. We get older and slower and less valuable to the world as we know it. Our parents’ age and sometimes get sick and need us to care for them as tenderly as they once cared for us. Our children grow and leave the home we built around them and venture into spaces to call their very own. And indeed we understand the meaning of solitude as we have never understood it before.
When I was a rock star Thespian (love how that rhymes with you know what) in junior high a million years ago – I had to memorize a little Shakespeare. I have never forgotten these words…..”Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
My mind is such a dangerous playground……tomorrow will be all sunshine and roses!!!!
