Angles of Memory

As another work week wraps here in Algorithm Valley, it's lovely all over Northern California, warm air with a soft breeze rippling the surface of the waters outside.


Pool Sharks

I'm losing the one employee who does editorial work with me in my office to a better job offer, sadly, so that's one more transition to throw on the barby.

My oldest son called and he's settling into CalTech; classes start Monday.

Between commuting, blogging, cellphoning, photoshopping, Skyping and image-blogging -- Seaglass photo site and Sidewalk Images site, I may appear as a virtual Mister Technology these days.

But truth be told I'm a simple country boy at heart. I still like my country music, my long walks somewhere in the wild, the beach, the woods, the lakes and rivers of my youth. At my office, it's rare for me to sit still for too long a stretch. I like to get up, move around, connect with people, go outside, have "meetings" that consist of long walks, sit on benches looking at the geese and the cormorants, my mind wandering far away from the here and now to the there and then.

There, you were by my side, and then, we did that. This gave us both so much pleasure that then we did that again. And again. You were there then, and so was I. We were both there together. It was then then and not now.

I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

But then has become now and there has become here.

There's no going back. Time is linear. Every second sweeps us forward further from our past. Not knowing the future, all we can do is re-enter the past in our memory cache. But memories grow hazy, the sound of a voice turns to an echo, the outline of features softens and blurs.

It's a melancholy journey. As we age, so much falls away -- so many friends, lovers, colleagues, neighbors, pets, jobs, stores, cars, possessions of all sorts. Pretty soon, to go forward, we just have to do it by memory.