Thin Ice of a new day
"one day you'll wake up, in the present day a million generations removed from expectations of a being you really want to be..."(Thin Ice, Jethro Tull)
I went to funeral today - Graham Clarke - a cousin of my wife. He was 97, so it was not one of those surprising things. What was was the number of people - a lot of kin of course, who had come, and how young many of them were. Here was a man who'd seen two world wars... most of the people there never saw one.
And I woke up... a million generations from the being I still want to be.
A sudden glimpse of mortality. I'm not going to see 97. The family history is bizarre - half live 80+ the other half do not see 50. One of the downsides of a long family history is knowing this stuff. I expected to belong to the second half. They lived hard, fast and dangerous - and dropped dead. Now it appears I've dodged that bullet, at least for now. And I'm still a million generations from the person I once wanted to be. I think I still do. Ah well. Never look back at might-have-beens.
To the living and the dead.
Salute.
I went to funeral today - Graham Clarke - a cousin of my wife. He was 97, so it was not one of those surprising things. What was was the number of people - a lot of kin of course, who had come, and how young many of them were. Here was a man who'd seen two world wars... most of the people there never saw one.
And I woke up... a million generations from the being I still want to be.
A sudden glimpse of mortality. I'm not going to see 97. The family history is bizarre - half live 80+ the other half do not see 50. One of the downsides of a long family history is knowing this stuff. I expected to belong to the second half. They lived hard, fast and dangerous - and dropped dead. Now it appears I've dodged that bullet, at least for now. And I'm still a million generations from the person I once wanted to be. I think I still do. Ah well. Never look back at might-have-beens.
To the living and the dead.
Salute.