The Guess Who sang that there’s none of it, The Chamber Brothers sang that it has finally arrived, Chicago sang, who cares about it and Irene Ryan sang that this is the it.
Specifically, we may think or not think about it but we are always surrounded by it; either it arrives too soon, leaves too early or couldn’t wait for it to end while all the “while” (the unmeasurableness of “it”) it ticks and tocks as the pendulum moves left to right.
Constant and unending? Jesus said that there is an end to it when he’ll visit us again and all those sleeping people over the centuries will join him in that place that the Guess Who sang about.
Mom tells her ten-year-old to take one of it and he thinks “eternity” as he exiles himself to his bedroom, the groom looks at his watch and feels “eternity” in spite of his love for her, it introduces us to the program we were planning to watch without his introduction, he tells his wife that it will come when the football game ends (did he mean the actually game or after the post-post game shows?) manic mom says that it’s finally it to move to a new city when everyone else is quite content in their humble home, he’s lost two marriages and now hopes that tonight’s it is it with his latest date, a glass of wine measures it and delays it before the order is taken (they’re called “waiters” for a reason in spite of their intrusions, “ready yet, folks?”) creams and oils appear to delay it until you admit that you know who marlene dietrich is, nice try, work is measured by it and treasured when it ends, the young bungee jumper tests its limits but the elderly’s slower steps tries to further it, at work, we plan and can’t wait for the end of it but retirement then shows us how much of it there is, the nurse announces your name at the same time you’re staring at the sign that says, “if you’ve been waiting for more than fifteen…” we get tired and run out of it at night and hurry through the morning with fewer of them (why don’t we switch that around?!) we’ve heard you tell that story several its now and say to our friend, “wow, just look at what it it is?” we leave taking it with us although many of those its were lost in that story’s re-telling.
We can bend, delay, extend or shorten it but its ticks and tocks don’t stop.
On a cold, winter morning at work my cigarette measures it so it averages around three of its. Dad’s deathbed can be fooled by it even when the nurse announces that the it was due. The uninformed son says to the nurse, “It’s God’s will for his it” as though God has an Excel sheet labeled with the its birth and its expiration of the it. We attend a college reunion and see what it did to all of them but not to you. (Wrinkles? Me? Just look at her?)
A disease can erase it,
a song can retrieve it,
an old movie can revive it,
an old friend can relive it.
It comes and it is gone. It seems forever when you’re ten-years-old and seems weird how quickly it’s flown by when you’re seventy. A disease can erase it, a song can retrieve it, an old movie can revive it, an old friend can relive it.
My it is passing away from me right now but I hope there’s more it to come so I think that the mom’s it got it right – I’ll exile myself to my room for one of those…what do they call them in football? That flat hand on top of that upright hand; that’s right, it’s it for rest.
Relive these songs (or hear them for the first it) but only if you have enough it on your hands. (How can you have it on your hands?!)
The Guess Who
The Chamber Brothers
Chicago
Irene Ryan
If you’d like to hear the writer read this blog, then enjoy.
Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Soulful Muse 