TURNING

A road diverged in yellowed woods
with neon letters burning bright:
“Progress” to the left-hand fork,
“Nostalgia” to the right.

I took my machete
to the brush between,
and so I split the difference.

Thoughts

When I was eleven, my younger sister took ballet lessons at the community center and my mother would park me in a wood-paneled waiting room that contained an overstuffed chair, a collection of Robert Frost poems, and a soda machine.

Today's #vss365 word evokes a turning from past to future, which made me think of Robert Frost, vending machine Cokes, and Ziggy Marley's "Tomorrow People."

Tomorrow people, where is your past?
Tomorrow people, how long will you last?

The past informs the future and the future redeems the past. I like to think that Robert Frost's two paths through the woods eventually circled back for form a loop.

Header

The header image includes another hash mark and the nearest thing I have to a machete, the jackknife I found among my father's belongings after he passed.

The solid heft, the unnecessary size, and the America flag pattern made me laugh at a time when I had nothing else to smile about. I couldn't stop imagining what over-the-top infomercial must have inspired Dad to make this knife the most absurd item in his collection of absurd infomercial impulse purchases.

Perhaps an American bald eagle carrying this knife in its beak, surveying the landscape from high above. Or the knife could have been pitched with a survivalist angle as the perfect tool for rebuilding civilization after the upcoming collapse. Maybe an endorsement from Crocodile Dundee: "That's not a knife, this is a knife. Oh, wait, that actually is a knife. Crikey, look at the size of that bugger!"

The knife also includes a seatbelt cutter and window smasher, in addition to the blade. Dad had experienced some vehicular incidents and, to be honest, was more likely than most to end up in an underwater car, so maybe that had been the appeal. Dad wouldn't have wanted to go down to the depths in his car without giving himself a fighting chance.

Or it could have just been that it was a jackknife, his name was Jack, and it felt like destiny for him to own his namesake blade. And the flag pattern commemorates the birthday he shared with his favorite president, Richard M. Nixon.

Love you, Dad. Miss you, Dad.

More Tomorrow.