A Moment Past As We Go Forward…
Affirming progress—“We won’t go back…” doesn’t prevent us from remembering and building on the past, acknowledging the ties that bind and helped us make the progress we’ve made and built the foundation from which we launch.
With this in mind, I looked back to a brief moment in time to see what I was thinking and writing in my September blog ten years ago in 2014. I can’t help but reflect on the illusion of time—how fast it moves (or appears to move) and how we circle within it as it wraps itself around us, then shoots us forward.
Boston on a Sunday Afternoon
By Joanne Leedom-Ackerman | September 8, 2014 |
The sun is shining. The swan boats are cruising on the pond in the Boston Commons. Joggers are jogging along the park. Children are running after ducks; parents are running after children. University students have returned en mass from summer so the hum of young people hums in Boston and its neighboring city of Cambridge, ever the student’s town. People from all backgrounds, speaking Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Russian and languages I don’t recognize pass by as I sit on a park bench.
For a moment I don’t want to think about ISIS or terrorists’ attacks or the beheadings of writers, who are friends of people I know, writers and their families whom I can’t help but think about and want to honor, or to think about those who must decide what our country does next or those who will take the risk to do it.
All this is on my mind and on the minds of people in Washington, DC where I live. But for a moment I look out and take a breath and watch Boston on a Sunday afternoon before the world accelerates, a few days before we mark again the events of 9/11. I want to savor and remember this moment just for a moment. It is the point after all.
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