Tozerboy

I was walking toward the T this morning to meet with A and J to work on a project. I probably didn’t need to go, those boys are so bright and so dedicated that they need no supervision. My real reason for going was to learn a new application and other, more subtle, aspects of life. I have to admit I like being close to them, they teach me more than they can ever imagine. There is such a sweet earnestness to them. I guess I hope some of it will rub off on me.

A few blocks from my house, as I passed the Sheraton Commander, an Asian family walked out of the hotel just before I passed. I always walk fast, and was slightly frustrated by their slow pace, but six people and three generations do not move together gracefully. Leading the pack was a Father and a young child that looked pretty new to the walking experience. In the middle was the Grandmother and an older child. In the rear was what I imagined the Daughter/Mother of the children, helping her elderly Father along. I was considering passing, them by walking just along the curb, but just before I did, simultaneously the small child in front and the Grandfather stumbled. It was like some unseen hand had pushed them at the same time. There were a couple of short shrill gasps while both parties were quickly grabbed and snatched back from falling. The Grandchild and Grandfather just kept on moving like this happened all of the time. All of this made me slow down, physically and psychically too, it made me think of my family and my life

Of course the circle of life is a cliché, but it isn’t often that I see a duplex example. When I saw it, I thought of that circle though and I was reminded of the time I was in Dayton visiting my brother. It was my last night there and after my parents had left and Tim had gone to bed. I stayed up to record some of his albums to tape (long before i-pods). That night I was very taken with Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon. It was old even then, it was 1984, so the album was about 14 years old. In particular I was taken by the song The Circle Game.

I knew that night was going to be one of the last times I would be alone with Tim. In a few weeks, his girlfriend Peg, now his wife, was going to move in with him. It seemed like he was growing up and moving on and in some way I was losing him. I recorded the album to the best TDK tape I had with me and then listened to it several times that night and at least once more on the plane ride home the next day. What I didn’t know that night, while I was listening to that music and thinking of the part of the circle Tim was entering, was that I had just seen my Father for the last time. He died suddenly a just few months later, before I could get back home to see him. I did not appreciate when I waved good bye to him, that I was on a new arc of my circle.

I’m like that though, good with the obvious, but I often miss the greater meaning, the poignant, subtle or often silly echo of a moment until much, much later.

As I was starting to put my observations down for today I suddenly realized something I had missed. When I passed that family I was on my way to do a Quicktime VR of a computer lab at Emerson. What was this Quicktime VR? A 360-degree interactive panorama or a simulated virtual reality view of a lab at Emerson.