It's disconcerting not to mention a bit nauseating to ride backwards. In a Metro train for example. I did it twice yesterday. The only people I ever knew who had eyes in the back of their heads were the Sisters of Christian Charity who taught me during my grade school years at Saint Boniface parish growing up in Williamsport. They could tell what I was doing even when they were writing on the chalk board with their backs to the class. Writing with perfect penmanship I might add. Those Sisters would be designed and quite able to ride backwards. But not me. And not most other people.
We just have eyes in the front. Facing squarely and dually ahead to give us that colorful, stereoscopic vision that vaulted the small, prehistoric, tree-dwelling mammals into the future of humanity. We evolved to be looking ahead. Toward what's coming. Not with our backs to the future. But focussed ahead. Clearly on the future.
That's why it doesn't work when I ride backwards on the Metro train. I'm facing what's been left behind, watching the present blur quickly by as it passes on the right and left. With little clue of what lies ahead.
This morning on our walk Kooper and I sniffed our way south down Washington Street. Into a mild southerly wind that will bring a bit of warmth and thaw into our future, out of a past few weeks that have been a decidedly chilly. Could spring be far behind?
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About Me
- Mark Gorman
- I was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Susquehanna River, in the valley made up by Bald Eagle Mountain to the south, and gentle hills and valleys to the north. That place that sheltered me, gave me food and friends, and both physical and spiritual nourishment for 18 years. That is the space where I was physically and emotionally formed. Ever since growing up there . . . because of growing up there . . . I have been inexorably linked to nature . . . to the earth and to all life.