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by Jan Noble - The Steel Magnolia
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When I was a child I saw wonderful things in the clouds and found treasure in every stream.
When I was a child I relished hot summer days and long rambles through cool green forests.
When I was a child I knew that nothing would ever change because time stood still.
I was wrong. No...I was a child. Time waits for no man, and children regretfully grow up. It is with a sense of longing that I realize an entire year has gone by in a flash. Time has become a creature that travels in quantum leaps. And it just leaped
one more time.
Writing for the Eclectic Lapidary in the past year has been fun. Now, I would like to share with you moments of my last year.
In the last twelve months I have camped on the slopes of a sleeping volcano and seen an entire range of them marching off into the distance. Snow-capped and cold, but thrilling they were to me. I have crossed the desert and slept beneath the stars,
walked in the footsteps of giants now dead for 65 million years and witnessed the evolution that brought them back to me. Dinosaur tracks are cute on television, but until you have stood in one, it just isn't real.
I have seen storm waves pound the cliffs at the rim of the ocean and waded in tide pools. The elements are a fascination to me because they produce the miracles that fascinate me on a daily basis.
I have trekked the burning desert and foraged the rivers for their treasure. These treasures, rocks, are not dead to me. They are a piece of living history that binds me to the past. Each rock has its own story, a history strung out over the entire
life of our planet.
Whenever I 'find' a new treasure, I wonder about its history, where it came from and where it will go after it leaves my hands. I am not a geologist or a lapidarist. I simply enjoy the trip and whatever happens to fall into my hands. I like the old and
faded as well as the sharp and pristine, my Indian grinding stone sits beside a long perfectly shaped quartz crystal. They are both treasures to me. I like them partly because they came from the same place...each was forged inside the heart of an
exploding volcano. Time made them different, but they are still treasures to me.
In the last year I have gone as far back into the mountains as I could get and come back wondering why I came back at all. Time waits for no man...not even me.
I will begin the next year anticipating the birth of my first grandchild. Like the sands of time, she will become my immortality and my legacy.
Time waits for no man. But for just a moment, you can make it stand still by lifting a glass to the future and saluting each and every moment that you savored in the last year. Enjoy them, they are precious and fleeting.
Happy Holidays and Bon Voyage!
Jan Noble
The Steel Magnolia
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Copyright, 1997 by Jan Noble - The Steel Magnolia
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