Today is the most perfect amazing breathtaking and beautiful day of weather I have ever lived through in 34 years of life..
Hope you’re having just amazing of a day during this fine start to the Memorial Day weekend, 2015..
Tag: personal
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A new day. An old day. A new day.
I had a very in depth discussion with a seer this week.. She explained a few things that, one could contrive are just happenstance and chance predictions, and others may say are true messages from beyond..
The odd part: A few things actually seemed to all combine together in a sensible few moments of clarity today..
I wrote down most of what I was told simply to go back in the future and see how right it all wrong.. But today, today alone, about a dozen or so things all happened before my eyes—-the words all made sense. It wasn’t a Sylvia Browne moment.. it wasn’t a MISS CLEO thing. It was a real and true chat about what matters, why it matters, how it matters, and how it makes sense.Life is compartments.. the brain is meant to close a few books now and then. The flesh is meant to break apart but the soul is made to move to the next class..
I will keep the words told to me private.. And besides, some would simply count it all as a hoax..
But I will simply say this, as explained, one chapter was closed today. Not with a bang but a whimper.
Suddenly it feels like a new one has begun with a train whistle and the sound of motorcycles, spring breezes, and laughter of a child.
Time to take in only the things that matter..
Only the things that matter.. -
WHY DAVE MATTERED TO ME
I am going to share a secret never before uttered: I copied all of my comedy material from someone else in grade school..
See, I was a bit of a class clown at times. I came up with some of my own stuff, my own jokes. By high school, there were times I even worked blue. But from around 1990 through the end of the 20th century, I was a hardcore David Letterman fan.
I would set my VCR nightly to tape every show. Those very tapes still exist in a box, tucked away deep in a closet in my bedroom. The day after, I would catalog the show and put notes on the front as whether they included my favorite bits. The guy under the stairs. Dave making toast.. Mujibar.. all of those bits and skits.. I don’t know if they would even work if I tried to watch them.. Quite frankly, I don’t even know where I’d find a VCR..But David Letterman provided me some of the best ideas to translate jokes into my own life. In high school, ‘hallway races’ were popular because I loved the bit about sidewalk races that Letterman used to do. Other profound moments of teenage comedy often came because of inspiration I found on the Letterman show. Or shows.
I even was able to get a hold of old LATE NIGHT shows around my junior year in high school at a yard sale–skits that even if kids were staying up to see LATE SHOW, they would have never had access to. No YOUTUBE back then.. no ‘viral’ nonsense.
Just David Letterman, nightly with sarcastic wit..
Things changed for me a bit after high school.. I loved the post 9/11 show that Letterman did. But I soured on his humor. He seemed to give up.. he phoned it in. After his sex scandal, I sort of abandoned the new Letterman and just safely kept the ‘old Letterman’ in my head.I have nostalgia for David Letterman for a number of reasons. Not only did his brand of humor inspire my own and make it safe to make the jokes I wanted to make, but he also got me through a number of dark times in my own life. Just knowing that he, the master of comedy, also suffered from moments of exhaustion and personal annihilation, depression, and harmful habits, made me feel just a bit better. It made me feel in some way like I knew David Letterman. And I think most of the fans who loved him–those who stayed with him until this bitter end–felt like they knew him too.
The Letterman fan isn’t the over achiever. Instead, a Letterman fan is the underdog. Smarter than his co-workers or bosses, but somehow ignored by most. Though a Letterman fan may be considered a clown, deep down that clownish exterior is simply masking the intelligent and moral person beneath. The man or woman who wants to learn about the universe, and does not accept a concept that we have already learned it. The man or woman who questions authority but agrees with the premise that we need it. And the man or woman who just wants to live life poking and prodding powers that be who so often simply want to force all to have their brand of humor…
Yes, nostalgia is building..
Sleepless nights were created by David Letterman. Inspiration .. a new brand of TV that thumbed a nose at the phonies behind the script writing. That was David Letterman. And also a reason why he was the constant underdog.. People usually happily accept the reality created for them–the Jay Lenos and the viral videos.. Even the Fallons with friendly skits. Dave–the honest Dave from the 80s and 90s–put all the trash out for all to see..This is a strange year, in a sense..
For one, Brian Williams’ actions led to his potential downfall–no NBC decision made yet.
Jon Stewart, a staple and visionary in the world of political satire, is hanging up the cue cards.
Jay Leno is gone.
Conan O’Brien is marginalized.
David Letterman is saying goodbye.There is a clear change in television–pop culture itself is altering. There seemingly is a new generation taking the helm. One that gives us happy go lucky humor that safety tucks us in at night. Gone is the wit and sarcasm that required careful thought for it to become funny. Instead quick laughs have replaced that.. Viral videos led to the Letterman downfall. Irony, after all, doesn’t work in a 10 second viral way..
I remember one fall night in 1994. It was late September, and my family and then girlfriend had just come home from a local fair as autumn waned. It was a beautiful night and slightly too cold for that time of year. It was a Friday night and I have no reason to go to bed early. That night, I remember distinctly, being overjoyed that I was home that night before 11:35 pm on the East Coast. My local news had ended with then weatherman Barry Finn giving his rooftop forecast.. and the Paul Schaffer orchestra opened up LATE SHOW with David Letterman. At that moment, at that time, all seemed fine and right.
All of these years later–21 years since that night as a matter of fact–Letterman is waving bye for the final time as WORLDWIDE PANTS and his LATE SHOW bid farewell..
This is a big pop culture moment, perhaps as large and important a time in TV as Johnny Carson giving his last golf swing as Bill Clinton began his first year in office.
But why is this big?
Because TV, itself, is changing. Perhaps in some sense over.
And maybe, in another, just beginning.David Letterman is a 20th century boy who had borrowed time in the 21st. But my nostalgia and love for his show stayed in the 20th century.
And I have the aging tapes to prove it.
DAVID LETTERMAN.
Thank you.A final note: Christmas without Darlene Love will just not be the same…………..
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The long goodbye
Let me fill you in on a little secret: You saw someone today that is going to die.
As a matter of fact, you saw a lot of people that are going to die.
And it all started this morning when you glanced in the mirror and tried to understand the ball of electrons and atoms staring back at you, vibrating in some form of reality that your mind tries to understand. But in reality doesn’t get one bit of..I knew someone who died today. A few days ago, I alluded to a friend who was afflicted with cancer, and who was succumbing to the disease after his battle began to end. He passed away from this world early in the morning, and has become the latest person in my life and close circle of friends and family to meet destiny. I suppose someone out there reading this right now may have the same moment of sadness and grief as well. Death is common, after all..
My heart is distraught and my mind is reeling. I am attempting to understand the significance of life and somehow juxtapose that with the rapidity of death. Our arrogance and affluence permits us to borrow time. But that time is fleeting. All things must end, including the worries and fears, smiles and hugs. All things must end..
And that’s the part that darkens my spirits this evening..The internet has been a wonderful thing. And an awful thing all at the same time. For much of my life, I expressed myself in private settings. I would summons my artistic powers and draw cartoons or comics in the good times. In the bad times I’d plant the seed of darkness and expel all of my emotions using less vibrant colors.. less humor.. More of the deeper stuff, I suppose. But with the advent of the Internet during my late high school years, that source of artistic adventure was turned off, met instead with the HTML coding and eventually blog services that would steal the paint. I have tried to draw now and then. For the most part I either can’t think of something or I am mentally unable to focus long enough to make a picture look good, good like I think they used to. So instead now, I write.
And tonight I feel that need to write, to get thoughts down in this setting, and surrender myself for a while to the tears that indeed are flowing due to the death of a friend.This special person and I were also coworkers. Most of the time, when we talked, our chats would turn into conversations and often times feel never ending. But in a very good way. Once we got work off the table, our talks would turn deeper and other-worldly. He, like me, consistently pondered about the meaning of life, the purpose of our bodies, and the questionable reality of our souls. I often thought that God is math, he thought God was electricity. Either way, neither of us had the belief that God was the large white male with a beard that Catholic nuns had taught us. A little more of a nuanced approach to faith was in play once we got talking..
I will forever miss these talks–these amazing moments in which both of us let our guards down on purpose and spoke freely and openly about fears and superstitions, facts and figures. Now tonight, I suppose one can say he knows the answers to the mysteries of the planet earth.
As do many others by the second.x x x
My son falls asleep to music now. Instead of bed time stories, we quietly play YouTube videos of songs he likes to relax him. His little four-year-old nature is perceptive. He knew I was sad today and asked why.. I honestly told him what had occurred, and he looked down and admitted “that is sad, Daddy.” Of course, as a child would do, he eventually wanted to think about those innocent kid things again. Which was fine for me, wrestling my son when he is calling himself the Incredible Hulk is much better than focusing on negativity all night.
But before he fell asleep, he picked the CIRCLE OF LIFE song from the LION KING. Somehow the words had an extra special meaning today, this day, when the CIRCLE OF LIFE was completed for one and undoubtedly beginning for a lot more..x x x
The death toll in Nepal is rising rapidly. And that is the horror so often seen in this world. One earthquake has taken the lives of thousands of poor people who were living in squalor already. The Prime Minister said the numbers could get to a frightening level of 10,000 or more.. Death at that scale happens from time to time on this planet. Either Mother Nature is busy utilizing the tricks of the trade to steal the lives of humans, or Man himself thinks of plots to murder his fellow friends on the earth. Deadly days are always here–the end of the world, feared by many, happens every single day.
x x x
I am not a hopeless person. I am not someone who enjoys reliving the dour over and over again–some who know me, even close friends, often accuse me of that very thing. Instead, I contemplate these events of sadness and grief in an attempt to understand them. Sometimes even to quell my loud laughter on purpose.. because I need to know what I am laughing at. Events of awful nature can often put things in a greater perspective.
Ever have one of the day job moments when backbiting, sour apple co-workers, and meaningless office politics takes over your existence? When you think that those things actually matter? You get shaken up now and then.
You meet a bigger destiny..
You often meet a maker.x x x
Death has been called the great equalizer. We all share one bond on this planet, regardless of rich or poor dispositions: We will have the common event of an ending at some point.
We hope far away in the distance.. We long for the taste and smells of life. But they go away..x x x
I recall about a year ago, my work had a conference. That same person who died today was alive and well then, just diagnosed with cancer. He and others, along with me, went to a fancy steak house and he splurged, buying all of us dinner and a few rounds. He wanted no argument at the time the bill came. He wanted to pay. That was his nature–but that night even more, because he wanted us to remember a rancorous good time of loud laughter, cold beer, and great food. All on him–his gift to us… This is one of his finest moments, and perhaps one of his happiest. The sight of us allowing him to get the tab made him the happiest man in the room that evening.
He was a consummate professional but also a never-ending entertainer. He played songs loud and sang louder. He lit up a room when he entered.
Those rooms lit by the fiery of his existence are dark this night.x x x
What is life?
What is death?
Those questions are asked to often we fail to even care anymore..Instead in the age of smart phones when a hand held device gives us all of the information we crave, we stopped asking the important things.
Hillary Clinton is apparently going against some of Bill’s crime policies from the 90s. Jeb Bush did something too. I don’t recall what it was. And I frankly don’t care. These are not the stories of human passion that we should be hearing.
We should be racing for the stars, trying to find Mars..
By now cancer should be gone..
At this point, all people should have a chance for a happy life.
Every child should share in the dreams of a planet..
Life is too short..
By the time you get to this point in this posting, it’s even shorter for you.x x x
A little rock and roll heaven may be needed for a moment like tonight..
So enjoy it..
Life is only a one night stand. If you believe in forever, of course.So do you believe in forever?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLHKA9EGEzc]
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THE CREEPY CLOSET AT 3AM
Let me first explain what this is.. Late at night, if you’re perched at the right place in my bathroom, this is a view directly into my bedroom.. There is a piece of blanket stuffed into the closet which pokes out. Quite frankly, perhaps my laziness has equaled this, it has been there for a long time.. Too long. As a matter of fact, each night at 3am when either nature calls or some other noise of the house startles me awake, I make my way to the bathroom and see this blanket.. The more I stare, though, the less it is looks like a blanket.
See, this blanket has been scared me for months. With the darkness of night shrouding the room and just the faint glow from a nearby night light, this little piece of blanket starts it morphing. It looks at first like a witch, sort of staring at me.. If you look long enough, it begins to change into a smiling old hag, almost with a knowing cackle on her face as she sees me have a heart begin to race.. A few times it turned into a man, posing as though he was taking his final photo of life. There was a time when it appeared to be a wolf.. Another time it was simply a blank figure but yet somehow had eyes that were staring at me, almost winking with each second I gawked back..
Sure, I know this is all a figment of the wild night time imagination–when your reality suspends for a little as you take walks between the here and the dream world there.
But each time this is so realistic that I need to check this blanket prior to attempting to regain the sleep world. Regardless of my knowledge, my distinct knowledge, that this is a blanket, my deep fear of the shapes it poses as forces me into a nightly check.
I maintain sanity, let me explain.
I maintain reality..
But in the dangerously dark night air, the shapes that objects take can piece your imagination and scare you to the bone. -
When nostalgia meets the present
The family took a voyage to the movie theater today.. the HORROR REPORT family didn’t see anything filled with fright–no IT FOLLOWS for me, it’s not in a theater nearby.. Instead it was SPONGEBOB.. A sponge out of water. Funny parts, good laughs–though the ‘out of water’ business only took up the last 20 minutes or so of the movie, which was a disappointment. The real story here is that Ayden Morris, now 4, was at his first movie theater experience.
This was a big day for me–huge as a matter of fact.. It’s not the movie choice that mattered, but just that he wanted to attend a theater showing. And he loved it.. he was stunned a bit at how loud certain parts were, he cringed during the return to JURASSIC PARK trailer, and he heartily laughed at the humor of Spongebob. So did I, and my wife..
There was one more proud pappa moment for me, too.. After the film, we perused a much emptier mall than it ever was before. My local shopping sensation of yesteryear is suffering through the same downtown as many other brick and mortar shopping plazas.. But there’s a thrift shop–a place where old antiques and relics of yesterday are still bought and paid for by collectors and modern internet people. My son came across a bulk batch of HE-MAN action figures. He knew them since he plays with the few older broken ones I still possess. After today, we are adding three new (old) HE-MAN characters to the family, including HORDAK, who hasn’t been in my presence since 1990.
A full circle kind of day.. Beginning with drenching rain, dour as could be. But the light of family brightening the mood.. a modern movie in a cool theater with my 4-year-old eating up every moment.. and then a dad, at the age of 34, buying toys that I bought at the age of 4 in the same mall that I bought them in 20 years ago. So different in ways, but so similar in others.
Full circle.
Another moment of parenting..The fleeting moments of today are gone tomorrow.. So forgive me for writing about it. But it’s my way of making amazing little things last just a little bit longer than the short span of time they inhabit..
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I am quitting nighttime sleep meditations. But nothing against meditation.
The march of machines is taking our jobs from under our feet.. robots will accomplish tasks once held by human.
But in all of the futureshock we are being hit with, one thing remains clear: People are still trying to be people. And get in touch with the larger element of our cosmos..Enter into the equation something that maybe could be the job of the future: An expert on meditation..
Mary Macvean of the LA TIMES writes that people are seeking a way to slow down.. a moment to take a breather and disconnect from the highly wired world. And in doing so, find the inner peace that is promised with meditation..
The LA TIMES opens this way:
“Bring your attention to this moment,” Janice Marturano instructed. “Be open to sensations of warmth or coolness, sensations of fullness from breakfast, or perhaps hunger.” Minutes later, the meditation ended with the traditional strikes of little hand cymbals.
Buddhists? Old hippies? New Agers?
Nope. The room was full of hospital executives and managers in lab coats and scrubs, jeans and sports coats at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. And the teacher was Marturano, once a top executive at General Mills.
And it goes from there–people who are in highly respected walks of life are the new meditators.. They are attempting to slow down a bit..
Years ago, well before the 60s generation drugged the meditation world up, this would have been unheard of. It wasn’t so long ago that even Catholic priests warned of the dangers of meditation.. you can slip out of the realm here and let evil forces take over. Now most religions are heralding in the power of yoga and mixing it with prayer. What was blasphemy then is bastioning now.
I can see it now.. experts in meditation opening up their own buildings where people can find solitude in darkness. Experts and ‘gurus’ will be the new fad–and lots of people will pay big money to those who call themselves a subject matter expert in the art of just being alive without a handheld device.
Instead of a quiet walk in the woods, we will pay hundreds of dollars to someone who can give us the experience in alternate ways.. A new movement! And a new job market.. Finally humans may have found the one thing robots can’t do. Well.. maybe not.
There is one interesting caveat, and a personal one, I’d like to share on this, however.. And an important one. For about two weeks, I was attempting a certain sleep meditation (one that will remain nameless, as I don’t want to besmirch the reputation of a highly visited YOUTUBE page.) It seemed to be putting my to sleep quite fast.. the video’s essentially said it would connect me, or the user listening, to the God of the universe. Whatever that meant..
The video clearly had an impact on my life. But not the one I expected.. For about two weeks, I fell asleep fast without trouble. But I didn’t dream.. I literally can’t remember one instance in the two weeks where I woke up remembering any dream at all. Even more, for about a week and a half my daily life seemed slower and more zombielike. I didn’t get excited about nearly anything.. I was zoned out, and even my morning coffee didn’t do much to awaken me. I stopped the meditation and without about three or four days I was back acting normal again, heart racing after caffeine. Even my tin-foil hat paranoia was back in full force.
So which ‘me’ was the better me? Zoned out and careless about most of everything. Or wired with a touch of mental anarchy? A better question, perhaps: Which was the real me? I have lived most of my life being stranger than some and perceiving conspiracy where others don’t even see smoke. But I am never at rest. The meditation-version of me was at rest. At night, and even during the day..
This showcases, at least for me, the power of meditation and the ability of the mind-body connection becoming more of an albatross than a savior.
I am quitting the nighttime hypnoses.
Instead maybe I’ll just take a phone-free walk in the snow winter woods.
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The sad reality of nostalgia: It really does not feel good
Nostalgia is a terrible feeling at times.. It reminds you that you are losing time, giving away minutes. Precious minutes.. Allowing the second hand to dictate your existence..
The smell of certain things, the sounds.. The cold at night under a moon.. Fog on a a warm evening.. All I those things bring back very specific memories or me. More accurately, they bring back feelings..
They bring with them a melancholy and infinite sadness.Don’t get me wrong.. I enjoy my current state if existence quite a lot. But those creeping moments of yesteryear occurrences are becoming more pronounced.. The thoughts of life as it goes gets a little more fire. More serious..
Youth is drying up.. Sure 34 is the new 19. But that’s only because people say that when they age..
There’s a memory I have of a foggy night in a dance club in Allentown PA.. A night I danced with the woman who years later would became my wife. My wife who birthed our son.. Our family who is growing together with the pains , laughs, and trivial concerns that life brings..
And the clock ticks away. I swear it gets louder as time goes by..
Nostalgia..
All of this may sound a bit glum for a Friday night.. But that’s just me sometimes.. Some have a green thumb. I have a glum thumb..
Nostalgia.As crazed and sad as I may sound, I know you feel the same way too.
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Why do we talk?
My nearly 4-year-old has an amazing way of staying away, whether it is by asking for endless bed stories or asking for drinks of water, there’s always a creative flow when the lights go off..
Last night, his attempts to stay away were a bit different. He asked logical questions that, I can tell, were really on his mind.. He wondered to me, “why do I talk?” And then “how do I talk?” I tried to explain in a somewhat scientific approach–looking at the clock and realizing that it’s long overdue for sleep to take hold of him, I shortened things up a bit and said “God made you be able to talk.” Then he asked, “but where is God?” Of course, ‘heaven’.. And then “But where’s heaven, I can’t see it?”
I just said “up there” and sternly said it’s bedtime..
As I sat there watching him journey into twilight and dreamland, these questions became my fated destiny that would keep me awake long past my bedtime as well..
Sure, why do we talk? The five senses.. all of those easy scientific methods can explain away the normal intricacies of the human body. So we know how we talk.. evolution.. sounds we make as infants and the learned behavior of voice and recognition of words.. It makes sense ..
Or does it.
Wait..Why do we talk?
The first thing I thought of was a horror movie I saw last year called PONTYPOOL. The premise of that film was a radio show host who was narrating a crazy development; Zombies. And those zombies were being created by people who lost their ability to understand words–saying the words so many times the words lost meaning…
Ever do that?
Ever something so much that it begins to not make any sense anymore?But why does it make sense to begin with?
We talk, in a way I suppose, because we need to communicate. We need to share and tell others our fears, thoughts, suggestions, and hints. Early man needed to alert fellow community dwellers of the threats posed by animals, cliffs, or rocks along the path to the stream where fresh drinking water would be found.. And then if someone died from eating the plant that looked good but was poison, we needed to tell others. I just still can’t understand why someone would have eaten an onion, unless it was on a dare.
So communication and sharing information is the prime reason for talking, right?
But that still, for me, does not answer the question my toddler son posed to me before sleeping: Why, in fact, are we beings who talk?
I have two autistic children in my family–so many people can say the same thing these days, can’t they? In their world, talking is not nearly as important as it is for others.. As a matter of fact, they are both over a decade in age and their vocabulary is not nearly on par with others’ abilities. But they have their own skills that no others can have–they perceive. They are able to move beyond the tactile and break out of their limits.. They are further along the autism scale than others, so I don’t know how good or furthered their speech will get in life. But for now, they are smart as can be, sharp as nails, and able to express themselves in a far deeper way than children who talk. The one thing I am amazed with more than anything: For their age, and inability to use words like others, they don’t lie. They can’t lie. They show their emotions immediately and wear them like proud banners on their sleeves. Happiness, anger, sadness, or fear.. For children who can talk fine and talk a lot, lies many times flow from their lips like hot lava from volcanoes..
But still, none of this answers the question: “Why do we talk?”
Others have asked this question as well. Since the moment prior to sleep last night,. I have been Googling and even BINGING all I could concerning the question.. I found out that Noam Chompsky believes it to be an innate human trait: Talking.. Lots of people also wonder why we talk in our sleep.. Also there are reasons we talk, the scientific explanations as to how our vocal cords evolved through time to allow the better movement of air and noise.. A 2010 NPR article explains,
“Speech, by the way, is the most complex motor activity that any person acquires — except [for] maybe violinists or acrobats. It takes about 10 years for children to get to the adult levels,” says Dr. Philip Lieberman, a professor of cognitive and linguistic science at Brown University who has studied the evolution of speech for more than five decades.
Lieberman says that, looking back at human evolution, it’s evident that after humans diverged from an early ape ancestor, the shape of the vocal tract changed. Over 100,000 years ago, the human mouth started getting smaller and protruding less. We developed a more flexible tongue that could be controlled more precisely, and a longer neck.
The reason the neck started getting longer, Lieberman says, is that the tongue moved down, pulling the larynx lower, requiring more room for it all in the neck. “The first time we see human skulls — fossils — that have everything in place is about 50,000 years ago where the neck is long enough, the mouth is short enough, that they could have had a vocal tract like us,” he says.
That’s fine and understandable.
But why…?Isn’t it amazing that children learn how to talk so early in life? How they pick up on the words being used around them and somehow figure out the meanings of those words? Yet there’s so little achieved in the scientific world that explains the real reasons this occurs.. This video portrays a unique experiment.. the Speech Home project.. It was a dad who performed a language observation experiment, with every second of the man’s son’s life from the moment of birth to three years old to showcase how language happens..
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75XxjJYuV7I?list=PLB20439E638039F36]
The video shows something also interesting.. as the boy learned words, the parents dumbed down their own speech.. using simpler words. As the child learned more, the parents began to increase their vocabulary again, thus introducing the child to newer forms of words and phrases. And all of this happened naturally without purposely intent. It was innate.. and Chomsky said.
5000 words by the time a child is 5..
Think about that?We know how we talk. We are beginning to understand why we talk..
But I still don’t know how to explain that to a child.. because in the end, even I cannot comprehend the magnitude of the incredible human trait: Speech.
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Father and son photographic reunion..
When I was 3 and a half, I was featured in a book. There was a full-spread page with a photo of me leaning up against a borehole in the town of Centralia, smoke was billowing from the background and a group of teenagers were running from the camera–one may have been my brother. The shot looked more like a scene from a third world nation .. But at that point, a mine fire had infected the underground nearest my home and the situation was getting dire.
The book was SLOW BURN. You can see that image here from photographer Renee Jacobs..
Yesterday there was a haunting moment when I saw my own past come back for a split second in vivid detail.. the black and white photo of my from 1983 suddenly was in color, standing on front of me.. My son Ayden, incidentally the same age as me when I was featured in SLOW BURN, was standing on front of empty SEARS store shelving in the Schuylkill Mall, Frackville PA.. Sears of closing after the corporate decision to make Frackville one of the many locations that would shudder in 2015. There were only a handful of items left, all marked with an ‘all sales final’ warning under the 70% off all merchandise signs. Business was brisk–people were even rudely clamoring for more money off.. Even the store shelves were being purchased. All things must go. Including history.
When Ayden was in front, I said “look at me and smile!” and snapped the photo with my iPhone. Instead of a smile, I caught him sort of in a wide-mouthed surprised look at what he was seeing. I think he realized that this store, once filled with items to the point where you could hardly walk, was vanishing. Now it’s becoming a giant open field of tiled floors..
As I watched Ayden walk around the soon to be closed Sears at the mall today I realized the importance of this simple photo. When he is 30 or so, retail will be a distant memory. The way we buy everything will have changed.. This picture captured a moment, just one moment, when it was in its final phase..
While he may not remember the day or time this picture was taken, the evidence of it will allow Ayden will impress his own children with tales of malls and how he once, as a child, walked in stores to buy products instead of purchasing them in his body chip implant and have same day drone delivery..
Of course Ayden’s picture is not being published in a book. But it is on his father’s website. And that’s the way things are now.. until something else comes around and makes websites so 2000 and late.
A moment in time.. As life shifts.
