The days get longer, and the years get shorter...
I find myself lately gazing into the black and white maw of old television shows - the ones I've never really watched like My Three Sons, and Donna Reed. Watching their prearranged domestic comedies unfold and resolve inside a tight 20 minute half hour. Their gee whiz clothes and issues. The paternal pipe. A motherly doting figure who does the dishes and irons, and parses sage advice framed in humble experiences from behind aprons. The kids: they doddle and clip in fast dialogue, and sidestep artifacts of mid century modern furniture, and traipse upstairs. An inlaid bookshelf might hold leather bound tomes in the father's "study". He may, or may not have read them. But, he smokes his pipe in thoughtful chuffs, pondering the day's lesson. We know it to be, as the music lulls.
Somewhere, in an idyllic realm exists streets where sidewalks unfurl with lawns and studies and two car garages open invitingly. A dad will impart lessons. A mothering figure will nurture, and embody that role with a keenness of irony. Laugh tracks may occur. Walking, perhaps, will beget an oboe, or the carefree trill of a flute.
The one thing that sticks in the craw is that few of these folks captured on that aging grey cellulite are still living.