Time Warp
Back in the day when I had my first full-time job and was not only the new guy in the office, but the youngest, I attended a party for a retiring secretary. White-haired and known as something of a pistol, she had worked in the office her entire career, but, having lost her husband a few years earlier, had decided it was time to, as she put it, “Look for a little adventure in life.”
As I approached her and a group of her closest friends to wish her well, I overheard one of them ask, “But why would you even consider getting married again?”. With a sly wink to the others, and a subtle nod in my direction, she answered, “There may be snow on the roof, but there’s fire in the stove.” Certainly there was fire in my cheeks as I quickly stammered my best wishes and beat a hasty retreat.
In the inscrutable way in which the past intersects with the present, this ancient bristlecone root somehow reminds me of that encounter.
Time Warp
Back in the day when I had my first full-time job and was not only the new guy in the office, but the youngest, I attended a party for a retiring secretary. White-haired and known as something of a pistol, she had worked in the office her entire career, but, having lost her husband a few years earlier, had decided it was time to, as she put it, “Look for a little adventure in life.”
As I approached her and a group of her closest friends to wish her well, I overheard one of them ask, “But why would you even consider getting married again?”. With a sly wink to the others, and a subtle nod in my direction, she answered, “There may be snow on the roof, but there’s fire in the stove.” Certainly there was fire in my cheeks as I quickly stammered my best wishes and beat a hasty retreat.
In the inscrutable way in which the past intersects with the present, this ancient bristlecone root somehow reminds me of that encounter.