Time and Time Again

First there is Time; then there is time again. The most obvious thing about Time is that it is happening right now. I don't know what you are doing at this moment. But I do know what I am doing. I am sitting in my living room, with brilliant sunshine streaming in as it passes through the millions of autumn leaves, green and gold and brown, that hang in the hundred or so forest trees on our mountainside here in the Blue Ridge.

Please string along with me for this moment of reflection. Our house, built on the sloped edge of a small mountain in the Blue Ridge, was not damaged when Helene blasted her way through western North Carolina. But there is something about catastrophic events that prompts a composed response on the keyboard, an offering up of literary sacrifice… what used to be called literature, to commemorate the event that changed the lives of people in a thousand Blue Ridge households. So now, here I peck away at the keyboard. A chronicler of my age cannot resist the urge, after such a whirlwind, to peck out a few thoughts about life and the challenges thereof. So. . . here I sit in the golden, indoor sunshine, listening to Classical WDAV, 89.9 FM streaming out of Davidson North Carolina. Suddenly I was hearing one of my old favorites - an orchestral concerto that was first heard in baroque Venice about 300 years ago. As if by magic, the golden glamour of afternoon sunlight streaming through golden leaves, accompanied by the sound of Vivaldi's "Autumn" concerto, transported me to - not a different time and place; I am still here in my home in 2024 - but to a different frame of mind. I had a notion to find my old CD player and listen to all four of Vivaldi's Four Seasons concertos, which is what streams through my ears and brain as I write this. I feel a strange fascination, cranking up that CD player, a device that I have not laid eyes on in many a year. Like I mentioned in the title above. . . Time, and time again. . . cranking up an obsolete device to listen to a musical masterpiece that will never be obsolete. Put that thought in your glass and sip it. All this self-entertainment because the internet is down after Helene blew it away, Imagine that! When the newfangled stuff fails, the old tech gets retrieved from the closet for a spin down memory lane. So I take leave of our Blue Ridge Mountain homestead, intending to drive the four miles to the Boone Library for Wi-fi, to post this reflective moment on the world wide web, so you folks out there in cyberspace will catch feeling about Helene, or autumn in the Blue Ridge, or the passing of time . . But guess what ! You just never know what little glitch will get spun into your path. I had to change a flat on the old Subaru before spinning my way to the Library to post the blog. Then, by that time, the library was closing, so I had to duck into Josiah's Venture wine and chocolate shop on King Street, to get to the Wi-fi. This time of day I'm not into the Local Lion coffee gathering place. No problem. A glass of Cabernet and its a good day for posting a blog about Time, memory, and recovery in the aftermath of what was - for hundreds of people in my region - a cataclysm that totally rearranged their lives. But not mine. I'm just happy to be alive, still able to appreciate the sunshine through home windows, and a beautiful place to live, on an autumn day in the Appalachian mountains. Glass half-Full