March 25: "Flash," Speeding Trains, Middle Finger

Billy Collins goes on a trip . . . 

Flash

by:  Billy Collins

As my train

sped by a schoolyard,

I caught a tall boy

missing a basket.

Reading this poem reminds me that life really is a flash.  We're all on speeding trains headed toward the same destination, staring out our windows to catch glimpses of . . . what?  Moments of happiness?  Sadness?  Boredom?  Rage?  Victory?  Failure?  Great food?  Lousy food?  Grief?  Joy?

It's impossible to avoid some of these stops on our journey.  They're like neighboring towns.  Love is just a few miles up the tracks from Loss.  Happiness Junction is a suburb of Sadness Springs.  You see what I mean?

They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  That may be true.  However, most people don't walk or run or drive or fly or locomotive in straight lines.  No, the human race meanders, gets off the train on the edges of swamps and tundras.  We are drawn to difficulty and struggle, perhaps because they make victory and joy even sweeter.

When I was a kid, vacations seemed to last centuries.  The two weeks at Christmastime stretched out like a beached Blue Whale.  Summer vacation was like Lake Superior--blue on blue on blue all the way to the horizon, no end in sight.  Now, vacations are flashes--short as a plate of pancakes, gobbled up before I have a chance to even smell them.

That's what happens when you get older.  The train speeds up, and each day is just a snapshot from a passenger seat window.  Blink and you may miss your stop.  It seems like just yesterday when my daughter took her first breath, and now she's preparing for medical school.  And wasn't it just this morning when my son learned how to use his middle finger to piss me off?

I don't know how to slow things down.  The best I can do is write these blog posts and poems about these flashes.  Sometimes that works.  A lot of the times, it doesn't.  It's like holding your breath before blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.  As long as that pocket of air is held in the fists of your lungs, time stands still, and any wish seems possible.

Maybe Saint Marty is just a flash in the pan of your hour or day or life.  Close your eyes, and he'll be gone.