OPEN THIS DAY
… annual joy – or make it a daily one
Friday June 20, 2014
Many Calgarians may scoff – we didn’t have much of a spring.
We can counter – compared to last year on this date – we haven’t had much of a flood either [though a number of areas to the south have suffered damage when rivers crested in the last few days].
How lucky!
Not repeating last year’s longest day or its shortest ugly night.
Many still await repairs, restoration, compensation or sorting out what they’ll do next.
For everyone, stories for telling.
Material losses.
Most injuries confined to property, keepsakes, egos.
And wallet damage.
We change minds, seasons and clothes – but most of all, we change our attitude, our perspective and we can, with great wisdom, ask classic question: will this be important a year from now?
Open this day.
Use it.
Consume every minute …
Then close the books on spring.
Flood altered paths, rivers became new last year. How about you?
We’ve all weathered storms, but have we changed our path? Found new ways?
Changing seasons, unlike changing clothes – gigantic earth tipping, incrementally each day – then without pausing, ceases, starts tipping back the opposite way (minute annual differences measured by nerds in lab coats).
Earth tilts on axis while most of tilt mostly at local or family windmills, as if our rants might be heard, as if anything will change …
Life’s ridiculous extremes, pushing ourselves so far without braking – swinging back, invisible forces pulling us from brink to civility, from idiocy to sanity – wavy lines ebb/flow as if we all matter as much as the very biggest of things.
Because we do.
Summer solstice arrives, 6:51AM EDT(4:51AM in Calgary) tomorrow.
Mark Kolke
197,048
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 14C/57F, sunshine, barely a breeze, warmth returns and rains [mostly] have taken their flood-threats somewhere else for a while; Gusta loved the tall un-mown grass by the car dealership where she romped a while (her belly got supremely soaked) but she didn’t like the train-crossing bells. No critters, no pedestrians .. just sunshine and one last look at spring …
