Ticking away the moments...
· by Roy Edlund
In 1973 I was a teenager with a record player and Pink Floyd's album "The Dark Side of the Moon" that I played until the grooves wore thin.
I knew every word of every song. I just didn’t know what any of them meant. Not really.
Last week, I read a headline about some celebrity who died at 58. Younger than me by a good stretch.
I felt the usual twinge you feel for a stranger, and then I did something I don’t usually do. I did the math on myself.
I figure if I’m lucky, really lucky, I might have a dozen years left.
Maybe less.
You don't get a number, but you can count on your fingers and get close enough. It shook me more than I expected.
And suddenly every decision I’d been making looked suspect.
Was this the right project? The right use of a morning? Should I be out on the beach instead of at the desk, or at the desk instead of the beach? Should I spend more time with Sandie? Should I write that book?
And right in the middle of all that, a few lines of "Time" came rushing up from some dark recess of my mind that I hadn’t thought about them in decades.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,\ Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.\ Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
I was sixteen the last time those words meant anything to me, and back then they sounded like a warning meant for somebody else. They were about grown-ups. Other people. Folks who’d wasted their days and woken up behind.
I had all the time in the world.
Yesterday afternoon a 70s playlist played this song and I listened to the whole thing through, I pressed repeat. Turns out the song was waiting for me. It just had to let me catch up.
The sun still comes up over the same ocean, more or less. I’m the one who’s changed.
The time is gone, the song is over, Thought I’d something more to say.
And I still have that nagging feeling that I haven’t quite said what I meant to say..
Maybe nobody ever does.
Love from here. ❤️
Prints of the photos in this post are available in the Beach Bum Gallery on paper, canvas and metal.