Friday, February 16, 2007

Changing faces

Sometimes life zooms along at such a blur I hardly know what to put down into words. So I choose a random point to begin, hoping the trail it starts will include the most important piece of the whole. Having never offically studied philosophy theory, I haven't a clue as to what that statement indicates about mine, but I bet son #3 would have some opinions. And he just had a birthday. #26. When someone I love that much adds another solar circuit I think the world is that much better as a result.

I was lunching with him the other day, sharing my stories of braving skiing on 'fast' skis for the first time this season, and listening to his own tales of mentoring a couple alpha-type adolescents. I am a great listener to such talk, having little advice to offer. When you enjoy observing all sides, it is impossible to choose one. The absence of an answer might be mistaken for not caring, but I do care. I am just amazed as I witness my youngest, a young man now, walking in the shoes that his life has brought him. He is the first to admit that he 'doesn't feel like he should be teaching anyone.' I think that his humility and transparency make him one of the best.

We live in a world of movement and transformation. The roads that I walk are changing daily now. One day the snow is nearly gone, the next it is foot deep powder, sculpted into drifts on the third and a thick glaze of ice on the fourth. Time seems to be as solid an entity as ever. The teacher I have been listening to lately quietly asserts that time is an illusion... the only reality is now. Past and present are projections that we pretend are 'now' when we recall or worry about them. Well, there you have a quite incomplete and simple version of it, anyway.

The scientist in my world states that such ideas might bear a sliver of truth. He also says that the way of the world is towards entropy.... chaos. If you drop a plate it fractures into many chards. It moves towards the chaos. The singularity of our distant past keeps expanding, blowing outward, into more and more pieces.

The events of our household have taken on a plasticity of their own. We both notice it... little upsets that seem all out of whack perforate otherwise smooth n easy days. Last night a very warm wind mixed up all sorts of things outside of our house, and perhaps this was part of the stirrings within, too. Physics acknowledge that all is connected. Why should human beings, with our intricate play of neural chemistries, be isolated from the airy ocean that is home?

As I rode the ski lift on Valentine's Day, snow was falling steadily, and I could watch the individual flakes land and ride on my sleeves. Is every flake really unique, I wondered. What if two were identical. Would this be the beginning of a reverse of physics.... the opposite of the tendency to chaos that we are told exists? What would be next? Would I meet myself?

Would I like her?