within minutes the music can all change. the fire could be at your doorstep, your spouse could avert her eyes, you could be hit by an object, your simple days are over. then you reach backwards, wishing you had been happy with what you had. that all the complaints before were small until that moment.

but perspective tells you differently. it was always a challenge. even before the news broke of the draft the wars had begun. their were always devils you were fighting, they simply have taken another form. when an ice cream falls off the cone of a child it is still a tragedy.

when you come into a troubling situation the living begins. gone are the moments that they didn’t matter, a stronger you pushes forward and allows into them the people you have cared about. you cancel the unimportant meetings, you start looking at the clock less and the calendar more. the days are peeling away, the leaves are withering, it is time to tend to the garden and take stock of a fading reality before you.