Skip to main content

Back in Time...

 I'm drifting back again to that earlier decade - sort of like inhabiting one of those flying dreams where we scan the clouds hurriedly and travel in some weird, angelic, time-lapse photographic way back to the year 1977 - the fulcrum year of my development - a year of brief hope before malaise and stagflation - standing as a wonderful marker between that "earlier time" of "before" which encompasses the 60's, 50's and 40's leading back to the War itself - and the afterlife of adulthood known to me as the 80's, 90's, 2000's up until the present now ...This decade that I have overvalued in so many ways and built-up in my nostalgic brain, but which for me because of my age and description - stands as the all-important portal...There I am again standing on the open green field, that seemingly infinite vista at Poly High School - playing catch with Ralph - and being overcome by a slew of overwhelming emotions...The fastball is coming at me but my my eyes can't see well enough to retrieve it into my glove...Pride in hand-eye coordination - so previously taken for granted is fading - and I seem to be going blind momentarily - or finally rather shedding my youthful 20-20 vision...It will be a few more years until I recognize while driving haphazardly during a rainstorm that I need glasses to correct nearsightedness...But this feeling of being waylaid by oncoming baseballs - not even my favorite sport by the way - is symbolic of some sort of abrupt end to youth and childhood... Looking out at that iconic field - situated so cozily in the nice part of town - off Victoria Avenue - I feel again like I'm bumping up against one of the boundaries of my small world....To the west lies Newport, Hollywood, Burbank, Beverly Hills, Malibu - all of these mythic L.A. locales that people like me understand only very dimly from what images we catch of them on television...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Suburbs

 I have spent much of my early life in the suburbs and after a brief stint in the big city - with its noise, crowding and cramped spaces,  I find myself immersed again in this familiar realm - an environment that seems part of my destiny. I've always thoughts of the suburbs as a place meant for children - where children can feel safe and protected - with non-busy streets and clean sidewalks - room to ride one's bike or go door-to-door selling cookies. To consider how many of our early impressions and sensations were spawned by this largely artificial world...How different such a milieu is from other places on earth, war zones, rain forests, Siberian outposts, tiny mountaintop villages or large sprawling mazes of high rise apartments in vertically-inclined mega metropolises...The suburbs are a place where a definite order and routine can be imposed...where regularity is king... lawns get mowed on time, shrubs are trimmed, garbage bins are placed at the curb and returned to thei...
Post a Comment
Read more

1974

Prologue - > We are fortunate to live in a time, or so it is said, when we of the future no longer feel the burden of gender to such a degree as in previous ages; nowadays there is no pre-established norm or "role" for us to perform or hold onto like a chain about the neck. There was a time, of course, and not so long ago, when men were de facto expected to be  tough strong, resilient, athletic, assertive... and which to judge by the role models in movies and popular culture which we could add on silent, stoical, protective, while no great shock was registered if there should be a woman or more than one who in some degree was known (also through popular culture, movies, novels, songs, etc. in comparison with her male counterparts) as:  soft, demure,  flirtatious, sociable, wise,  and to which one might add on: practical, prescient, intuitive, gregarious, solicitous, nurturing and perhaps multi-tasking,  socially-aware, loyal, resilient .   With regard t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The "Endless Summer" Feeling a.k.a. "Time Stop Mechanism"

Growing up out west - we had what was known as the "endless summer" feeling - a moment in the summer when - not Time per se - but hectic, anxious, nerve-wracking time would come to a standstill. Change would still happen of course, things would continue moving, interacting, but at a slower, more predictable pace...the rhythms of summer would take over with sunny days giving way to balmy nights...a certain degree of repetition would lend structure to this seeming "pause" in the action...Clouds still move across the sky, waves still crash against the shore, traffic on the roads, people walking, biking, swimming - but all in a self-contained world over which one had some semblance of control..Long days at the beach, lying in the sun or playing tennis at the community college, watching the heat rise on the pavement, shooting baskets on the outdoor courts, sitting poolside at a neighbor's house, sitting on the lawn at dusk, staying outside on summer nights with no wi...
Post a Comment
Read more