Ah... well... can't hold onto anything.
Yesterday afternoon, after a morning filled with a flurry of activity, my partner and I rode our bikes over to our "sun-spot." It's one of our favorite places on the planet, fronting Lake Michigan, with a great view of downtown Chicago; all the massive buildings and towers looking like little tinker-toys on the southern front. Another day of paradise. It was pure pleasure to park our bikes on the big verdant, rolling lawn. We sat against a stone wall and let the sunshine pour down upon us. This time of year the sun is at such a tilt, the rays of the sun just seem to caress, and there is an amazing, otherworldly, golden glow shining upon everything. Think of that golden glow in some of those great Rembrandt paintings, or one of Salvador Dali's wildly surreal landscapes. Yes. Like that, a golden glow that totally suffuses everything, the blue water, the brilliantly colored trees, the runners, the bikers, the wind-surfers, the sailboats. An optical illusion, the golden glow seems to come both from within and without all things. Anyway, this little spot is an uncommon, quite extraordinary place, we think of it as a "power spot." It's off the beaten track, we can sit in silence, watch the passing scene, without interruption from folks passing by. We sipped cold Kombucha and talked about everything, and nothing, under the sun. We lingered, dawdled. We didn't want to leave. The minutes ticked by, but sort of in a lazy, lovely slow-motion. We knew this was a bonus day, an amazingly beautiful November day in the heartland. We wanted it all to last even as we watched the sun slowly make its trek across the sky towards the west. Finally, reluctantly, we had to admit that it was time to go; places to be, promises to keep. We got back on our bikes and rode off down the path. Time. Can't stop time. Sometimes it feels like you can slow down time, but there is no stopping it. Nothing lasts. Can't hold onto anything. You can feel everything falling away even as you try to hold on. Unfortunately, there is no holding on, or stopping; the day, the time, life, it just rolls out and away from us moment by moment.
