Is it the unexpected death of Prince? Is it knowing my brother is bummed about that and various other losses of musical giants? Is it a lingering ankle tweak? Is it the bathroom scale that taunts me every day by creeping higher not lower?
Whatever the reason, I’m in a moping funk. I skipped my run this morning partly due to my ankle and partly as I’m headed to the airport to jet up to North Carolina for the Tar Heel Ten Miler tomorrow. Seeing some pals from back int he day, even though I have only just recently seen them, should help cheer me.
I dash from Chapel Hill then to the airport to get out to OKC for Sunday’s Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, held annually in remembrance of the April 24, 1995, bombing. That’s not exactly a cheery thing to turn my mood around but it’s a race I’ve been meaning to do. I can still recall that day — our high school’s drama guild was up in NYC seeing Show Boat and we got out of the matinee onto the waiting bus when we heard the news.
Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint what triggers a thought of the past. Sometimes it’s something inexplicable. But something there’s a real, tangible impact to a memory. Perhaps that’s the key to exiting this funk I find myself — the realization that thoughts have weight and mass and can change us. It’s a cliche, some Peter Pan mumbo jumbo, but perhaps thinking happy thoughts, good thoughts, can help turn darker thoughts to the light.
And so there is loss in the world. It being Earth Day, there’s a foreboding sense of climate change, cataclysmic change on the horizon, possible event horizons for point of no returns for humanity’s survival. Gosh, I’m just little Mary Sunshine snacking on a bowl of cherries this morning….
Is it possible this latest “breaking news” on dinosaurs has also colored my mood? Apparently our dino friends were in decline and doomed long before any asteroid strike. Are we then perhaps not doomed ourselves thanks to our changing climate and environmental impact? What good then has come from our evolution from reptilian brains, which still occasionally rear their heads in our noggins? Sure, sure. We’ve done some impressive things — but have we not fallen prey to George Santayana’s prescient warning:
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
