Paradise Preoccupied

My dear friend, Grasshopper, posted this cartoon on his facebook page this morning and kick-started a mental process that’s been lingering through a frustrating day of hoop-jumping, so I’m grateful.

Being a big fan of experiencing deja vu all over again, sentimental longings attached to wistful recall are some of my fav paths to wander, and since I’ve been either blessed or cursed … pick one … with a frighteningly prodigious capacity for reconstituting memories in accurate detail and proportion, those trips down the M Lane are frequently called for.

Those who know me well used me often in the recent past as a depository … repository? … suppository? … of shared memories, keeping their own brains free of the flotsam and jetsam and thereby roomier for present-day experiences, realizing how much easier it would be to phone me when needing to reconjure anything from our childhood phone number to the name of the dog who played the dog on “Topper” and all the words to the theme song from “Mr. Ed”.

As the comic strip suggests, however, there’s now some social media online for everything but the phone number … and maybe even that, soon. It’s a huge leap in consciousness for our species when decades past are clickable and common experiences of one generation leak into the next.

Although my puny human brain can almost grasp the concept of non-linear time, such easy access to pivotal past moments is a bit disconcerting, and I do rather long for the days when I could long for the days …