Songs in the Afternoon

Remember the song with the lyric in it "Please come to Boston in the Spring time?" Don't know why, but I am sitting here on this incredibly lovely October afternoon in the middle of Cow Country, and for some reason just that phrase keeps running through my mind.

I don't really know why. I know a few folk in Boston, but really just acquaintenances. And I am not in Boston, so frankly, have no clue why this keeps floating around in my head like spare change I just can't seem to find a home for.

Perhaps I am just thinking wistfully today. Collin will soon be on break, off to visit with my family down south. I will be traveling in the Dakotas. Conor will be here in classes. Each person of my little unit will be jangling along doing what needs to be done, or in at least one case connecting with family. And perhaps that's the reason for the song. This feeling that my people are scattered in so many places. As am I with all of my travels. It would be so nice to gather everyone together, but life has a way of creating distance. We do our best to overcome this with technology, but the distance is there all the same.

There was a time when life, though less convenient, was simpler in this regard. People did not move as far or as quickly. And in some ways I guess I long for those days. Yet I know I would miss the complex ways we have of reaching out in our hyper-speed, hyper-technical world of today.

I guess you really can't have your cake and eat it too. When we are younger I think we believe it is as simple as baking two cakes. Seems like the perfect answer, one for now, and one for later. Little consideration is given to that later than later moment. Which is where we find ourselves when the distance creeps in and we start humming old tunes and spending wistful afternoons with the image of that cake in our heads.

I guess I'll carry that song with me just a bit more today. For everyone I wish was here and for every place I wish I was today. I'll just let it play on. A sweet little wish to remind me of everyone out there, and everyone in here (my head).