Things Were Permanent, When I was Young
Posted: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Things were permanent, when I was very young. The sidewalk, with its long, diagonal crack from which ants and dandelions emerged, was always there and always would be. It was made of white concrete, and concrete was forever. Our house was made of brick. The roof could burn, they told me, but the rest would always stand. The neighbors’ houses were brick as well; hard, inflexible, permanent. The neighborhood would always be the same; the houses and the sidewalks and the streets. When I was young, things of stone and brick and steel did not alter, were permanent. I could not conceive of them dissolving and disappearing, because I could not yet speed up time.
When I was ten, I was lying on the lawn lounge chair in the front yard under the red bud tree which had the crooked branch that I could climb to get on the roof. I looked across the wooded lot next to ours--the lot where the new house, which is now an old house, was not yet built, the lot where the trees were too big to climb except the one that I needed a cinderblock to stand on to get high enough to reach the lower limb (the trees are all gone, felled and sawn to dig the hole in which they built the new house). I looked across, through the big trees, toward Eddie’s garage, which I could see from there before the house was built. I said to myself, on that that warm summer day that I remember was bright and beautiful and green: “I will remember this moment all my life. In the far, far future, when I am old, I will remember this day and place. I will remember lying here looking across the woods lot, and remember me the way I am.”
And I do remember the place and what I said to myself, but I can’t remember the date or the time (except that it was day and was bright and green). It was way back then, when time was still slow but things were not quite permanent anymore. They’d paved the road and built a new bridge up on Ambler Street, so the old, familiar one which was made of concrete and steel was gone. But, the new one was made of concrete and steel, too.
The old people died. They built the new house that’s old now. I went away. I sat in geology class, sleepy—the night was too short, the morning came too soon. The film showed continents moving, colliding. Mountains rose then disappeared into the sea. Time speeded up and the Earth went round and round in a blur, four billion times and more in a circle with Christmas at the bottom and summer at the top.
I stood outside looking up at the tall building that was made of steel and stone cut into large square blocks. The rain dissolved it and tiny fossil shells, encapsulated, fixed in time, dead for millions upon millions of years, stood out in the limestone. I touched them, the stones and the dead shells. I speeded up time and watched the building crumble. The rain washed and froze and split it into sand and the wind blew it across the desert. It piled in huge dunes that covered the land. The sun turned red and huge and the dunes melted into glass that shattered and fell into a trillion sparkling shards.
I kept moving quickly along the path. The dogs died. People died and the houses were not the same, outside or within. They dug up the sidewalk and poured more concrete. The children frolicked, their clocks ran slow and I was thirty. The children grew and ran in bigger circles, then, I was forty. They tore down the old borough hall, the stones and concrete and steel were quickly hauled away. As weeks sped by, the new one rose toward the sky; and I was fifty. I kept moving along the path, because I could not yet slow down time.
Time was there, when I got old. I sensed it when I breathed. I saw it as the children grew. I watched the hour hand move, round and round, faster, faster, until it was a blur. Weeks punctuated my life. Months passed by as I tore the pages from the wall. Years turned and passed along, Christmas at the bottom, summer at the top.
I closed my eyes and saw the galaxy swirling, faster and faster, disappearing down a hole. All was black, but I was still there, somewhere around it, above it. Suddenly I saw a light glowing, felt its energy all around me, and inside of me, and realized it was always there. The clock stopped, as the timeless, perfect light, with its images of the billions of years engulfed me. I gasped and realized that nothing had dissolved and disappeared. I'd merely lapped the circle, I closed the loop. Time would pass no more. I awakened to the truth that, everything is permanent. It alters, changes, yet all exists forever, and is as it always was, in the light in which I glow.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)OMG
I learned that from my grandkids on facebook. Such a great writer.
You have a wonderful way with words. A credit to our profession, Mr. Jack.
I loved your article.
Sandrathanks so much, Sandra. Of course, my profession in sewer plant supervisor.
This was rendered by a soul standing right next to Vulcan the Blacksmith. As the hot sparks fly off, you feel the passage of time and he relentlessness of its movement. Then you move away and the feeling is different, but the knowledge just the same. "Just like the clock at Elementary School, I'm lookin at and waiting on you". This was my first song as a teenager. Then, as now, I know and have learned that the awesomeness of time passing is understanding where you are in accordance with your clock. I appreciate your article, not in a technical sense, but with reference to my experience with that clock. Great job.
Very deep, Jack. thanks!Thanks for hitting my stuff today!
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