Tuesday, April 26, 2016

On the Comfort of the Familiar


       

We all know that much is said about being forward thinking and welcoming the new, all well and good because, God forbid, we should get entrenched in the narrow ridges that life can take. We want to be stimulated and stimulating; we want to be modern and up to date; we want to be able to welcome the change that is always coming. Yes indeed, but isn’t there also something to be said for the warmth and stability of the familiar?

Current and prescient...

I want to be current and prescient to what is forming before me, but I also do not want every day to be up for grabs with the instability of the unknown knocking at my door. There is comfort and restfulness in the familiar. The neighborhood restaurant where people we know congregate for breakfast and the waitresses know your name…this is a place to land in a sea of fulminating vitriol, especially during election years. I can count on the “kite guys” and their magnificent, 30-foot streaming kites decorating the skies most weekends at our nearby waterfront park. I live in the San Francisco bay area where our little cities are ringed about with marshlands and changing tides that always await us as we drive up. A stay in these well-known vistas lends a quiet opportunity to let the mind settle its differences.

New and invasive...

Of course the new and invasive unknown will always be coming about, especially in urban areas that thrive on change. But I think we also need the quiet pockets of the familiar so that we can lay back and catch our breaths during the day. A favorite place or a trusted hand can never be replaced. What lies before us can shine splendid and monumental in its excesses…and it still stands on the shoulders of what is already here.

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