"Turning, Turning" (Oct. 2009)

Ever since I was a little kid watching Apollo astronauts walk the moon, I have been fascinated by the stars and space travel. I'm amazed by the two Mars rovers, still collecting data and sending us pictures more than 5 years after their 90-day life expectancy ran out.

So I was reading about Messenger, a probe launched five years ago to orbit and map Mercury. For convolutions of space and interplanetary physics that only a rocket scientist could understand, to get this little guy into orbit around Mercury requires passing the planet three times to get it lined up just so. It recently passed Venus, our nearest celestial neighbor, and on the way by the NASA folks aimed its camera back at Venus and took pictures of it shrinking in the distance as it moved away. (see it for yourself here)

This isn't a celestial experience that we can have here on earth. We feel our presence in the cosmos in more subtle ways, particularly now as our nights grow longer and chillier, and the signs of looming botanical hibernation grow more obvious.

The idea of watching a planetary neighbor diminishing in the rearview mirror tugged unexpectedly at the heart of the poet within. I got to thinking that not only is time fleeting, but so is place. The place where I grew up has morphed into one I barely recognize, much like it does for every generation. There are no constants, no straight lines, only a constant turning - the earth about its axis, the planets about the sun, the wind about the autumn leaves.

Perhaps our little genius probe crisscrossing the inner sanctum of the solar system has me rethinking my definition of moments, as not just a unit of time, but also of place. After all, when we think of moments, it is as much where we are and perhaps who we are with that resonates emotionally.

As I watch yet another dear friend begin an arduous battle against our own body's inherent cellular malfunctions gone awry, I find myself obsessed with being fully present in the moments. Perhaps it is the natural fear all of us have that it might be me, some moment soon, some moment far off, or perhaps never. Life is a bewildering array of statistics and probabilities, with only one certainty - it comes with a 100% mortality rate, in this plane of existence anyway.

My wife and I have been engaged in a long string of moments in becoming first-time homebuyers, procuring a new venue for the next string of moments. I have called but one place home for 17 years, and while if at last all of the pieces soon fall into place the move will not be over great distance geographically or emotionally, nonetheless the pages turn to the next chapter.

My daughter Madeleine will grow up in a house different than this one. She is a little over two years old, a little person with her own dreams and her own fears. Whatever it is that has her clinging to "my daddy" lately, we have spent many moments simply holding each other.

We have reveled in them, and lingered as long as possible. They are fleeting too, much like that flyby of Venus. There is the excitement of anticipation - "we're going to have a baby" - followed by arriving smack in the middle of all of the intensity of moments around the birth, the infancy and the progression beyond. Already these too are disappearing in the rearview mirror. She grows older, as do we, and the moments to come will be different. Rich no doubt in countless ways both predictable and surprising, but different. 

So too that Les' battle with cancer will be filled with moments, both poignant and painful. No guarantees are given, no outcomes ordained. What is given is this moment, and the next one, and the next. The simple joys of making music, one on one, or shared with hundreds of listeners. The art of conversation, the sharing of sustenance. The sound of clawhammer banjo trickling delicately in the air. Moments to be anticipated as fervently as these moments are filled with hope.

They are all precious. The amount of them remaining is unknown. While I am eager to experience those that lie ahead, today I am content to pause and be present in this one. Thank you for sharing it with me.