Childhood's End
Ask any Statistical Mechanic kicking cans down on the corner: When a phase change strikes, it can be sudden, surprising, and yet predictable in retrospect. Such, it seems, are the days of our lives. One moment there was I, young and easy under the apple boughs, wondering why every day disappeared into the distance, etc. and stuff - merrily proclaiming that my generation had finally parted ways with the rituals to which our parents were bound. And then, falling slowly at first, but gathering moment, my brave new kindred began to wink out, struck down in their prime by that most perennial and silent of assassins: Matrimony.
Apparently, the Institution of Marriage is not so easily brushed aside by mere youthful bluster. Not for the first time, I have fallen afoul of second-guessing human nature, inveterate idealist that I am. In my green and carefree innocence, I failed to acknowledge the signs: relationships starting to measure in years rather than months, co-habitation, thirtieth birthdays landing thickly about, unselfish decisions.
What is this strange omnipresent force that seems to tug at us all? I had thought it to be like fleas or religion, chronic annoyances which dull the quality of life of a great many, but to which I remain blissfully impervious. But now I wonder if it waits for me too, secreted in some angle around the next corner, biding its time? Am I destined to fall softly to a damsel with a dulcimer, seduced by symphony and song - or does a femme fatale already stalk me in the dark streets? Abyssinian maid or demon of the night?
The Statistical Mechanic, in his abstract way, will warn me of a cusp event - an abrupt transition to a new state. The happy noise in which I genially meander, ending in a swift adjustment. When it happens, will I welcome it? In my starry-eyed rapture will I even pause to note the passing of my childhood, drifting slowly down that river of the windfall light?
But for the while at least, Dylan Thomas, Time still lets me hail and climb, and so I think that while I still can, I will run my heedless ways, and sing in my chains like the sea.
Apparently, the Institution of Marriage is not so easily brushed aside by mere youthful bluster. Not for the first time, I have fallen afoul of second-guessing human nature, inveterate idealist that I am. In my green and carefree innocence, I failed to acknowledge the signs: relationships starting to measure in years rather than months, co-habitation, thirtieth birthdays landing thickly about, unselfish decisions.
What is this strange omnipresent force that seems to tug at us all? I had thought it to be like fleas or religion, chronic annoyances which dull the quality of life of a great many, but to which I remain blissfully impervious. But now I wonder if it waits for me too, secreted in some angle around the next corner, biding its time? Am I destined to fall softly to a damsel with a dulcimer, seduced by symphony and song - or does a femme fatale already stalk me in the dark streets? Abyssinian maid or demon of the night?
The Statistical Mechanic, in his abstract way, will warn me of a cusp event - an abrupt transition to a new state. The happy noise in which I genially meander, ending in a swift adjustment. When it happens, will I welcome it? In my starry-eyed rapture will I even pause to note the passing of my childhood, drifting slowly down that river of the windfall light?
But for the while at least, Dylan Thomas, Time still lets me hail and climb, and so I think that while I still can, I will run my heedless ways, and sing in my chains like the sea.
posted by Thor Harley at 11:21 am
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