The other morning I received two deliciously different items in the mail. A large, colorful seed catalog; a large, colorful class reunion invitation. The cunning counter-point here was almost symphonic....!
Each was typical of what you might expect in spring. One a tribute to new life, the other a tribute to lived lives. Not too unlike America itself this springtime, as we hesitate between a triumphant past and an unsure future. All springs are a hesitant interlude between one season and another, between the known and the unknown. And while we look forward to new births, we can't help but find new deaths.
You study the seeds, and you understand how each must die in the ground before yielding its blossoms for you. You study the faces in your graduation picture, and you understand how each death among your ranks yields rich memories for you. Call this what you will -- gardens or reunions, joys or sorrows -- but at root what we're dealing with are transitions. Those sometimes subtle, often slapdash changes which are the recurring theme key to our symphony.
I'll plant some of these seeds and I'll attend this reunion. Just like my country is once more planting and attending those things which my grand-children will read as history. The funny thing about transitions, personal or national, is that you rarely realize them while they're happening. How does the fish know it's swimming in this thing called an ocean when this is all it knows? How will our grand-children know they're competing in a different world than we knew when their world will be the only world they know?
Any coming transitions in my backyard or from my re-gathering with old friends will be something I can see and touch. On the other hand, the historical transitions of a nation are far less perceptible, because not even the historians can see and touch them until they're over. Helen O'Connell -- who was a popular big-band vocalist in the 30s and 40s -- put it succinctly at age 80. During a big Hollywood tribute to her and to the big-band era of Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Glenn Miller, she blushed at the microphone and said: "Gee, if I only knew I was living in an 'era' I would have enjoyed it more!"
Looking through my catalog and my invitation, I feel like Helen. Gee, I lived through the "heroic forties," the "fabulous fifties," the "revolutionary sixties," and all the while it didn't seem like an "era." Just everyday life. And so will it be with America when in some future time, folks look around and feel what they are is what they always were.
But that won't necessarily be so. Because in that future springtime, America may no longer bear the glory and the burden of leading the "American era." We'll perhaps be just one more great power among several great powers. And the name on our proud flagship will not have to be the USS Invincible, but rather the USS Indefatigable.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind a transition like that. After all, look what happens to my backyard when I let these seeds die into new life....!
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Another gem Jack. As I do my phone calling trying to find lost classmates for our reunion I find joy and sorrow. To talk with a new widow or widower breaks my heart. They had spent 30,40 or more years with their mate and now they are left to pick up the pieces. Even in those phone conversations there is a bit of joy when the topic of children and grandchildren comes up. The shock of seeing an old friend after so many years is softened by current pictures on our class website. Seed to flower to earth to seed all seems so fleeting but imprints left by those flowers will last forever.
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