Nature upsets me a lot these days. I think because it so perfectly demonstrates the passage of time. Nature is arrogant, it doesn’t care how you feel, the earth keeps on turning, flowers bloom, leaves fall. Having children seems to make you more acutely aware of the passage of time. Babies are born, they grow, we grow. At some point they are grown up. We live, if we’re lucky we grow old, and then we die.
Now it is summer. A sweltering summer. One day we will look back and remember the sweltering summer of 2018. But one day is in the future, one day means that day will come, one day means time will pass, one day means we will look back.
On holiday I stood in the ocean as the wind whipped the hair about my face, and I couldn’t hear anything. Just the roaring of the wind. I waded in, chest deep and stood there with the water lapping at me, pushing and pulling me and it calmed me The water didn’t care what year it was, the water didn’t care who I was. I bet you could have waded into the sea at that point 50 years ago and stared out towards the horizon and had the same prospect laid before you. I stood there with the wind roaring in my ears, blocking out everything else, and I roared back. I roared back at the elements and felt peace and felt Dad.