[ I pass this along for your edification. It is a post made to the Bruce Cockburn discussion list I'm a part of. "Life Short Call Now" is the name of Bruce's last album, and some of the other quotes in David's piece are similar quotes from his lyrics, if you don't catch the references. I'm passing it along because I think he "caught something" about life in this piece. My reply to him on the group follows his story. ]
Thursday, February 12th This is an example of a non-normative event, or possibly a normative history-graded event (a future topic for the lifespan development course I teach). I intellectualize to modify deep emotion. A professorial coping strategy. I am transformed, moved, disturbed. Hearing a loud rip in the sky and then tear open our bedroom curtains to a massive bloom of fire less than a football field away. A virtual video of strange recurrent childhood dream. It came true. Half dressed, running into the chilling drizzle and slush. Panicking and panting as we approach what appears to be our good friends house- a young couple settling into their second year of marriage. Our friends. Loved ones. Fire, heat, explosions. It can't be! Jesus! Frantic prayers to Lord of the starfields, Maker of days. Speaking in strange tongues because there are no correct words for this moment. Hoping tragedy onto strangers, We realize it is the house to the left. Just like that, tragedy shifts next door. We see our friends running, safe. Alive. Thank you. Only to find out that 49 fliers and one neighbor vanished moments ago in a flower of flame outside our bedroom window. "Surreal" I keep muttering. "Surreal" I hear echoed through cries and moans, walking past dazed neighbors. White suffocating cotton smoke causing moments of zero visibility. We move inside for air. Hours later FBI and TV crews knocking on doors - it is 3:30am - looking for clues, looking for stories. Lights, action, trauma. We have stories, we have pictures. But not for TV eyes and radio ears. Friday, February 13th "Did you have to show me that accident scene? Didn't I get enough shaking up? Tonight I'm flying headlong to meet the dark red edge of dawn. I know somebody will be crying, and somebody will be gone." (Bruce Cockburn) Today, a sick calm. No civilian traffic. Just the hum of generators, water hoses, fire trucks, police cars, and people chatter. Out-of-town media sluts approaching anyone who looks local, and ready for a little action. Our neighborhood is sealed off for the most part. Can't even cross the street to sooth (and be soothed by) grieving friends without threats of being arrested. Words do no justice for my clear emotion. As a coping strategy I try to excuse the angry yells of adrenaline-induced young cops. Works briefly, then tourette-like bursts of expletives. I'm pissing them off. Traumatized neighbors feeling violated by a sudden police state. Feels unjust, but we try to understand the perspective of cops who need a refresher course on sensitivity training. This isn't working. I better go inside before my throat bleeds. What am I thinking? Displacing my trauma. Our hearts are warn out by shock and disbelief. Our throats are raw from desperate cries and the thick sickening slurry of jet fumes, dust, and lost souls. Jesus! Life short, call now. David Merlo. Clarence Center (My Hometown) ********************************************** Excellent tale, David, and very well written. As I'm sure do many others here, I relate well to the inclusion of quotes from Bruce. He, too has an enduring fascination with the Tantric juxtaposition of the extraordinary and the ordinary, the everyday and those events that remind us that every day is FAR from everyday, and in fact could easily be our last day. >From my point of view, the enduring value of such realizations as yours lies not in the moment of realization, but in how long we can keep them active in our minds. We step off the curb and someone pulls us back onto the side- walk just in time to keep the oncoming bus from turning us into roadkill. And we have a moment of realization about how short and how precious life is, and that we should not waste a moment of it. Our first impulse may be to call our loved ones and tell them how precious they are to us. But how long *after* that phone call is over do these realizations last? How long until we start forgetting the preciousness of life and start getting caught up in its same old same old mind-numbing ruts again? That's why writing these things down is so important. This story is something that you can store not in a drawer hidden away somewhere but on your bedside table, to be read often before you go to sleep, to remind you that there is a possibility that you will never awaken, and to remind you to say your thanks for all the waking moments now, while you still have a chance. And that's what Bruce does in the songs we all love so much. He has moments of realization like we do, but he writes them down and shares them with us, in the hope that his stories about the things that "woke him up" for a few moments might help us do the same.
