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The Crow's Nest |
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Someone said once that it takes a man of
‘unusual character indeed’ to lead a life of idleness. I don’t
remember who said it. It could have been Mark Twain, but I was always
too lazy to look it up. The point is, it was one of the truest things I
ever heard. And I know a little about the subject. I’ve been living a
life of idleness all my life. It’s not easy. It’s hard and full of
trouble at every turn. It starts when you are a kid, and never lets up.
There’s always someone trying to get you to go to work, or to do
something constructive. I remember back in 1953 when I was in the third
grade. Hank Williams had died on the first day of that year, and life
hadn’t been that easy on me. But that’s another story. I was lying on my back on the old polo field by
the elementary school in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., watching the stars, when
I heard my momma’s voice. She was calling out to me in that tone which
meant serious business. ‘Yes ma’am!’ I called back. ‘Where are you Naman!’ ‘Over here!’ ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Watching the stars!’ ‘Come here, right now!’ All the other kids were home watching television
and were accounted for. Momma told me she didn’t want me to ever pull
such a stunt again. She made that clear to me all the way home.
There was a hint in a few things she said which carried the suggestion
that she might be worried about my mental development. In those days you didn’t argue with your
momma. You didn’t say, ‘Now listen up and listen tight momma! ‘The only time you can see the stars is at
night, and lying on your back in the middle of a big, old field is the
best way to do it. ‘It’s harmless. There’s no danger. It’s
restful and pleasing. It’s a nice way to relax, and it gives you a
chance to think. ‘To think about life and the reason for it and
all that. It gives you a chance to go back over where you’ve been and
wonder about where you’re going. ‘It allows you the time and the quietness and
the elbow room to meditate on the universe and attempt to sort things
out.’ In those days you didn’t talk like that. You
just said, ‘Ah ma, I was just looking at the stars.’ ‘You’re going to be looking at some stars if
you ever pull this again! Do you understand!’ ‘Ah ma.’ Ah, those were the days. Those were the ‘ah
ma’ days. Even if you didn’t have all the freedom you
would like, there was still plenty of room for idleness. You could spend all day on a pile of comic
books, absorbing the most wonderful adventures, without having to worry
about anyone putting you down for it. You could do things that grown-ups couldn’t
do. You could play and pretend and climb trees and crawl around in the
woods on your knees, following the march of a band of ants just to see
where they were going. And if you were sneaky enough, you could still
find ways to watch the stars and think and dream and wonder about all
the things you were going to do if you ever grew up and got the chance. Then suddenly you’re grown up and everything
changes. This is no place for dreamers, and there’s no
time for idleness. It’s time to get a job, get fired, get married, go
to war, get divorced , look for God and hope for something on the day
shift, as the poet said. Everything speeds up. It used to be that a day
seemed to last about a week. Now a week seems to speed by in just a
matter of hours, and every time you turn around you realize that another
month has flown by. Sometimes I get the feeling that life is
flashing by me at the speed of light and trying to yank me up by the
elbows and carry me along with it. When those moments happen, I can’t help but
feel a vague sense of alarm, and find myself instinctively reaching out
for something to hold on to, even if it’s nothing more than a few
blades of grass, while I’m on my back watching the stars. The puzzle of them seems to anchor me and relax
me awhile. I still can’t figure out how they got there or how we
humans managed to pop up from out of nowhere and get to the point where
we could lay on our backs and wonder about it all in the first place. One thing I like about watching the stars is
that they seem just as far away to me now as they did when I was a
little boy. The whole universe may be moving at a
hundred-trillion light-years per second, I don’t know, but when I look
at the stars – except for maybe an occasional spark shooting across
the heavens – everything seems to be as quiet and slow moving as it
always did. The answer seems just as far away too, although
it seems that I’ve gained a growing sense that there is something
right and natural and eternally bonding about the relationship. At the same time, I’ve had moments when I
could almost feel their tug too. Almost as if I would float right up
there to them, if I could just relax enough and let go. I’ve even wondered if it wasn’t my soul,
trying to break loose from my body and return back to the things it
always knew. I was pondering on these things the other night
when I heard my momma’s voice. ‘Naman, you get in here right now before
somebody calls 911!’ ‘Ah ma.’
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