Kodachrome
I just saw a very old picture of me. I’m with my brother, and I am maybe seven years old which means he is 23. He is in his full dress Army uniform and I am standing to his right, barely as tall as his armpit and I am wearing a green plaid shirt with a huge 1970’s collar and a denim jacket with a nameplate on it, the same nameplate he is wearing on his full dress uniform. We are standing in front of a brick wall and parts of two windows can be seen, two slivers at the top of the frame. There is a hedge to our right (left in the frame). We are smiling. My arm is wrapped around his waist and the tips of my fingers protrude above his left lower jacket pocket indicating that my brother was a hell of a lot thinner then than either of us are today. My hair is blonder than it is now.
It’s all ahead of both of us there, all of the happy days and sad days and the overwhelming grey pile of nothing days that make up the overwhelming majority of life. Days that just lay there like a pile of unfolded laundry. Days that come by the thousand if you live long enough. You don’t know about those days or about all the other moments that will assemble into the final structure of your life, replacing the blueprint you have in your head. Things like the vexation of having someone else’s creation in your head – a song, a sentence, a scene – and trying to tamp it down or push it out to make room for your own thoughts.
Or the fact that the tone of an entire day (1/25,550th of your life if you live 70 years) may be determined by the seat you choose on the bus or the train or even by whether you’ve chosen to wear a pair of more or less comfortable pants or shoes. (Don’t go telling me all your pants and shoes are equally comfortable pal, I ain’t buying it.)
There are also the things that you never imagined would give you small doses of pleasure. Reading a book while waiting for the bus on a cold late fall morning with the sounds of a woman’s sneakers skritching the wet pebbles that have been kicked up in drive-by splashes against the damp sidewalk as she paces, impatient. Or the simple pleasure of repeatedly beginning sentences with a conjunction and calling it poetic license. Or the quite contentment you’ll get from being alone as long as you have family waiting for you when you’re ready to end your solitude.
The happiness isn’t going to come from where you think it’s going to come from kid, but it’ll be alright. It will be all right.
It’s all ahead of both of us there, all of the happy days and sad days and the overwhelming grey pile of nothing days that make up the overwhelming majority of life. Days that just lay there like a pile of unfolded laundry. Days that come by the thousand if you live long enough. You don’t know about those days or about all the other moments that will assemble into the final structure of your life, replacing the blueprint you have in your head. Things like the vexation of having someone else’s creation in your head – a song, a sentence, a scene – and trying to tamp it down or push it out to make room for your own thoughts.
Or the fact that the tone of an entire day (1/25,550th of your life if you live 70 years) may be determined by the seat you choose on the bus or the train or even by whether you’ve chosen to wear a pair of more or less comfortable pants or shoes. (Don’t go telling me all your pants and shoes are equally comfortable pal, I ain’t buying it.)
There are also the things that you never imagined would give you small doses of pleasure. Reading a book while waiting for the bus on a cold late fall morning with the sounds of a woman’s sneakers skritching the wet pebbles that have been kicked up in drive-by splashes against the damp sidewalk as she paces, impatient. Or the simple pleasure of repeatedly beginning sentences with a conjunction and calling it poetic license. Or the quite contentment you’ll get from being alone as long as you have family waiting for you when you’re ready to end your solitude.
The happiness isn’t going to come from where you think it’s going to come from kid, but it’ll be alright. It will be all right.
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