by G. E. Shuman
I know how strange this probably
sounds, but I truly believe that I have recently discovered life on a
planet. I really have. I'm not exaggerating, lying, fibbing, or
fantasizing. The fact that the planet I recently discovered life on
happens to be the one you live on, does not make the discovery
untrue... at least it doesn't for me. You see, I feel that I have
recently become more aware, and much more appreciative of all of the
life that is around me. Perhaps this has something to do with my
slowly, relentlessly, advancing age. I'm not sure, and I'm not sure
if I care. I do believe that older people seem to appreciate the
day, the hour, the present moment more than most younger folks do.
Younger people are far too busy in the business of being in
business, or of being in love, or being preoccupied with themselves
and of their own personal comforts to truly discover life. Not so,
for most older folks.
In my youth, or more in the period of
my life from true youth to semi-youth and on to middle age, I managed
a fairly large retail business. This business managing actually
lasted for twenty five years or so, and I, therefore, spent most of
my weeks, and months, and years inside a building. I saw the sun...
but mostly on Sunday, until stores began being open on Sunday. Then I
saw the sun... less.
I think that my eyes began to be
opened more to the life that is all around me on this green world,
after leaving those buildings, the sixty-hour-a-work-week world. I
think that the realization that, looking down the road, I had many
fewer days ahead than in the rear view mirror also had much to do
with this discovery of life. I think I might not be alone in this
feeling. You readers of my age might agree.
Speaking of looking down the road, my
youngest daughter, my wife and I did a lot of that just last week, as
we transported Emily to her first year of college, in the deep south.
The trip to Georgia was a really good one, and, although we had
traveled old route 95 many times in years past, both the immensity of
our country, and the abundant life it holds struck me more on this
trip than perhaps during any other. This time of the year, green is
everywhere, even here in the North, but, seemingly, more so the
further you submerge yourself into the deep South. Everything,
simply everything down there is very much alive. The beautiful, but
sometimes unwelcome Spanish moss laces the trees; an example of life
building and literally living on top of and because of other life.
The woods, the towns and even the cities in the South are teeming
with every form of vegetation imaginable; insects, animals and humans
dwell, and thrive, within it all.
Since childhood I have been very
interested in our country's space program. (Yes, there was a space
program when I was a child.) I watched men walk on the moon, (And,
yes, they really did do that.) and I have been watching, more
recently, NASA's Mars rovers, as they trek across the surface of the
Red Planet. Those rovers and the scientists who sent them just amaze
me, as the machines struggle on that lonely world, and the
scientists study the data, in an effort to find life... ANY life. I
have often wondered at what effect such a finding by one of those
machines from earth would have on the inhabitants of our world. Just
catching a glimpse of a tiny shoot of a plant, much less some
mouse-like creature scurrying across the video screens at NASA, would
be the event of the century, or of several centuries, for our entire
world. If a giraffe happened to walk in front of the camera, just
think what would happen then. But, so far... no martian giraffes
have shown themselves.
What a contrast. On our world
giraffes are not common in most places, but they are here, and we are
not really amazed by them, even if we should be. And life, in all
its glory, is, literally, all around us. Our planet has been blessed
with it, in abundance. In fact, as much as I would love to believe
that the entire universe is just as blessed with life, so far there
is not one bit of evidence to prove that it is. Our world may be as
common as a blade of grass in a field of billions, or as rare as a
blade of grass on Mars. In any case, I wish you would just look
around you, and take the time to see, and to appreciate, what is
here. It is life, and it is truly amazing.
