A Meeting in DC...Hurry Up and Wait! (7 of 7)

There's a Time and a Space for Everything!

This is where my wait began and eventually ended. With the exception of the two cellphone ladies, the Live Oak Tavern was pretty alive with many folks coming and going. Everyone was happy that the federal tax ceiling compromise was completed, for better or worse, in a timely manner, but more importantly, everyone was happy the New Orleans Saints were back on the playing field practicing for that Thursday night opener against the Super Bowl Champs, the Green Bay Packers.

I hoist my seven dollar Abita beer to that!

It's been a week now and I've time to reflect on the trip. The trip, though short, was great... we got some things squared away at the meeting on Tuesday and had a good time being together again. Unfortunately, it came and went all too quickly.

I don't know what I expect from life.

I have always had a problem with time and space. It's not an Einstein kinda thing. Not that I would know. You could try to explain that theory to me and I probably wouldn't get it. I am not even sure it is a time/space kind of thing. I just find it strange that, in this example, for more than a year, we are away from each other and have very little contact from the various groups and thus become a vague, gaseous memory... untouchable! We may become connected visually somehow through a picture of our get together that is emailed to us or may appear on Facebook. Pictures of deceased friends and loved ones helps us deal with the loss. We accept this knowing we can no longer feel and touch or be with that person... Still,  it is almost the same thing, it's visual.

Speaking to one another over the phone helps somehow reaffirm that that body still exists in some kind of space though it is still nothing we can actually see or touch or feel.

People are close in so many ways, but not really until one travels to a spot where both agree to meet and they are, magically, there. Through travel, they are not just a sound, or a gaseous memory or even a picture we can physically touch. They are suddenly, through whatever time it takes to travel, actually real and alive, and touchable. They might look older or thinner. They might change their style of walking, talking, dressing...whatever, but there is that bond of physically having them there.

Spatial.

They may live thousands of miles away and may have so totally changed their lives that they are barely the same person you knew in the past, but for now, the present, they are here with you sharing a bond. It is all good. The cosmos is now back to center and balanced. Life is sweet and all is well.

 Time.

The same mode of transportation that brought you together can, in a week, a day, a few hours... a sentence, take it all away... till the next time!

Most people take that for granted, as well, they should, but for me, a person who loves to travel, the time/space thing has always made it hard to recover and get back to "normal." And... it has always freaked me out!

Copyright 2011/Ben Bensen III