December 30, 2011

THE PRESENT – OURS TO SQUANDER

I picked up a copy of the Harry Potter DVD, “The Deathly Hollows, part 2” a few days ago and felt happy and sad at the same time. I was eager to see the film again after having viewed it on the big screen. At home I’m inclined to catch details I missed at the theatre. I’m not a person who likes to repeat experiences but the series, either in book for movie format, provides me with a good deal of comfort, despite the havoc Voldemort wreaks. What attracts me, I suppose, is the durability of the friendships forged in periods of crisis. At such times, we are forced to realize that little in life endures, not even life itself.  

(courtesy: Wikipedia)

A friend asked me recently, if I thought much about my death. At 75 the notion has not entirely escaped me. The lines of Prince Hamlet drift in and out of my thoughts in frequent measure:

          “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

          If it be now, ‘tis not to come;

          If it be not to come, it will be now;

          If it be not now – yet it will come. (“Hamlet,” V, ii)

Endings, large or small, are bitter because they are endings. We know the past will never appear again. What do we know of the future? Nothing. What then is the lesson? Answer: We must use the present well.

I’m uncertain why I ramble in this manner. Perhaps it’s because the Harry Potter series is at an end; perhaps it’s because the coming of the New Year leaves me with fewer days to anticipate; perhaps it’s because I look back on my life with fondness. Who knows? Who knows? But the change in the calendar year always leaves me melancholy.