Old Man Doing an Old-Fashioned Thing

Just a couple of days ago I was driving home from work. It was nearly dark, and while inching towards the intersection between Telegraph and Huntington I noticed the left-turn lane was devoid of traffic, which was very unusual at that rush hour. Something was happening there, I thought.

Indeed, something was happening there in the form of a man standing in the middle of the lane, waving the traffic away from it. He wasn't wearing a police uniform nor the neon vest characteristic of road workers. A deranged man, I thought, maybe some victim of the current economic slump.

As I drew nearer I saw that it was an old black man in an old black coat. His decrepit Ford was broken down in the middle of the lane, so he'd not only raised his trunk lid to signal trouble but also stepped out of the warmth of his car into the bitter cold of a windy winter afternoon to keep other drivers from getting stuck behind his car. What a lot of trouble to take just so other people wouldn't be inconvenienced.

As I was easing my car past the old man and feeling grateful for his consideration, I watched him closely and thought that somehow his appearance went well with his action. Both were old-fashioned, and both were incongruous with these hustling modern days.

A Forgotten Photo

Recently on a website a group photo showed up, which showed yours truly of a quarter of century ago. The photo was blurry, still I could recognize long-forgotten faces.

I was the emaciated, shabby-looking boy standing at one edge of the group next to my then best friend. There were some other classmates, both close and not so close, and a few teachers as well. All looked both familiar and strange, the kind of strange familiarity one encounters when going back in time.

In a flash the Dark Age of my life came back, that slice of space-time continuum which I would rather relegate to the oblivion of a black hole, preferably a big one. Let's just say there was nothing remotely happy about it, when one cold night I stood on a hill looking down at all the cozy lights in the valley below, acutely aware that there was no place for me anywhere within sight and beyond.

Naturally I was not pleased when seeing that old photo, which brought back unwelcome memories. Then I confronted myself with the question whether deep down I was a coward. Pleasant of not, that period was a part of my life, even a formative one I might add. If at the back of my soul there's always this faint note of sadness the way the relic radiation is ever present in the cosmos, it's largely because of those years. If I grew up a kind man instead of an insensitive egoist, those years were partly responsible too. I realized I could not reject something that had put its print inside me so deep it had become part of me.

At least now I can look at that old photo not with aversion, but with a reluctant appreciation of my appalling state of want in those long gone days.

They Do Not Linger

Fall is almost gone, and so are its colors. Just a week ago the trees were still wearing their thick golden crowns that lit up the whole landscape in fiery splendor. Now suddenly they look as if they all just got a terrible haircut.

The hasty departure of the beauty of fall has caught me by surprise. I was planning for a long hike in the mountains to submerge myself in an outlandish world which was visually intense yet mellow and soothing like a pleasant dream. I was looking forward to following the meandering paths paved with fallen leaves which would make tiny crackling sounds under my feet; listening to the rustle of the playful wind among the shuddering trees; or sitting by a quiet lake which would reflect a blue piece of sky, some white patches of cloud, and a glow of red and golden from the forest in its clear and tranquil water. Only a few busy days, then it is already too late, and I will have to wait for another year to catch up with this marvel of nature.

I suppose the best things in life never linger around. They are like a passing train which you have to jump onto, otherwise you would be left alone in a cold and dreary place smack in the middle of nowhere, with regrets nibbling your heart away.

Late fall near the Potomac River

Good Old Hairy Days

Today at work I attended a lecture given by a man who looked like Bruce Willis but spoke with a thick British accent. While talking about how the computer technology had evolved, he mentioned the good old days when he had hair. Funny guy, and bald of course.

I suppose I am among the few who do not reminisce about the good old days or wish we could turn back the time and be in our twenties again. My new job has put me in contact with many new college graduates, and I often smile sadly at their naiveté, their clumsiness as well as their bad haircut; but then my smile turns wry when I remember my own unsophistication when I was at that age. So even though I enjoy moving about in the spatial dimensions, I would rather stay right where I am in the temporal dimension, thank you very much.

The point is that everything comes in a package, or a bundle as marketers are so fond of saying these days. If you want a woman then you have to put up with her possesiveness and nagging. To hang on to your freedom you have to accept loneliness. In the same way, youth carries beauty and stamina and a bursting love of life, but it also comes with severe cluelessness.

I am sure the witty lecturer I listened to today was just joking about his good old hairy days, and I doubt that he would trade the bundle he possesses now for the one he had in his youth. But then I could be wrong, knowing naught about being bald when my hair, thank goodness, is still intact.

An Orange Rose

Today I saw a friend's photo of an orange rose and felt a bit sad, thinking of another friend way back in my high school days.

My friend was good-looking, played violin, was an incurable romantic and got the most beautiful girl in our class for a sweetheart.

One day I was with him in a rose garden, admiring the orange roses when he suddenly reached out and picked one. I was shocked then I was scared, timid boy that I was, but the guy was as cool as a cucumber. We walked out of that garden, him jaunty and me as furtive as a thief even though it was he who had stolen that orange rose.

To get back at my friend for scaring me, I tried to snatch the rose from him, so we had sort of a scuffle. He managed to run away with the rose but without his sandals, which did not stop him from walking barefoot to his girl's place to give her the rose. It sounds corny, I know, but we were just kids and in the context of our innocence it was cute.

Twenty years later I came back from twelve time zones away. My old friend's family lived in a big city but he himself was working in a nearby province. I met him at a riverside café in the city and saw a faded shadow of the handsome, debonair friend I had known. Definitely life had been tossing him around, and he told me his violin strings had been broken a long time ago. That very night he rode his motorbike fifty miles back to where he was working in the province without stopping by to see his wife and kids.

And before you ask me, no, he did not marry his high school sweetheart.