This holiday is especially exciting. It's our first in our new house. It's the last before Jarvis 3.0 is hatched (due out January 9th, I'm reminded). Last year at this time, I composed a list of to-do's, especially to avoid the emotional cesspool of regret I usually feel after a lengthy vacation: "I could have done more..." "Why didn't I just..." That list served me well, and I'm going to kick another one out this week. Last year's list was mundane, looking back. I'm going to powerpack this one!
Tom Robbins, whom I have often referred as my favorite author, has yet to make an appearance here at Musement Park, and it's time. If you've not read his work, put it on your list for the break (assuming you have a break...and if you don't, read him instead of sleeping). I would be challenged to accurately characterize or summarize his work, but I can explain what I like about it. He is not presumptuous. He is one who can turn a phrase or milk a metaphor for all it is worth. He's funny, often naughty, and always mentally stimulating.
To give you a taste, I'm sharing here a passage from his book, Skinny Legs and All on this very subject of time (even a cursory review of this blog will prove time to be an obsession of mine):
Information about time cannot be imparted in a straightforward way. Like furniture, it has to be tipped and tilted to get it through the door. If the past is a solid oak buffet whose legs must be unscrewed and whose drawers must be removed before, in an altered state, it can be upended into the entryway of our minds, then the future is a king-sized waterbed that hardly stands a chance, especially if it needs to be brought up in an elevator. Those billions who persist in perceiving time as the pursuit of the future are continually buying waterbeds that will never make it beyond the front porch or the lobby. And if man's mission is to reside in the fullness of the present, then he's got no space for the waterbed, anyhow, not even if he could lower it through a skylight.
See what I mean? Swell, huh?
1 comment:
Tom Robbins is one of my favorite authors too.
I met him at a bookstore in Kettering, Ohio. He was a good sul and signed my copy of Jitterbug Perfume. (My favorite Robbins novel.)
Skinny Legs is a solid read, enjoy.
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