Exclamation Point Days and Our Extravagant Aspirations
Hmmm, are those handful of exclamation point days in our lives a call to action for our deepest desires?
Most of the days that make up our lives are singularly unremarkable. We go about our well established routines. Time passes without incident. It’s a good day when we get to the end of it having met our obligations and not messed up on anything.
Ask me what I did two weeks ago today. I couldn’t tell you much more than: Went to work, took care of business, came home, took care of business, went to bed. I became a day older, perhaps just slightly wiser and one step closer to the weekend.
And then there are the “where were you when…” days. Those handful of days when something dramatic happened that fixes in your mind a specific moment in time. The leading candidates on my list:
Where were you when… 9-11 redefined the meaning of terrorism and swept away any illusion of security we once had.
I remember with perfect clarity… I was on the 28th floor of an office tower in Toronto – not a reassuring place to be. Later, I was at Union Station trying to fight my way onto a bus when the entire commuting population of a city of 2.8 million people was trying to escape the city at the same time.
Where were you when… cascading blackouts, originating in Ohio on an otherwise ordinary August 14, combined to form the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 that left 10 million Canadians and 45 million Americans without power for as many as two days.
I remember with perfect clarity… I was at work when the power went out. Not knowing how widespread the problem was, I headed for Union Station and was lucky enough to get on a train back to the suburbs. It was the next day before I understood the full extent of the blackout.
And most recently, where were you when… the great rainstorm of July 8, 2013 set a new one day record dumping 126 mm of rain on Toronto and Mississauga – flooding subway stations, go train tracks, city streets and basements – knocking out power for some areas for up to two days.
I will remember with perfect clarity… I was hiking at local conservation area. Thankfully, the sweltering heat made me pack it in early. I got home half an hour before the storm hit. I watched the torrents of rain from my 18th floor apartment window with both awe and a bit of fear.
We can all name many more where were you when days. For you, they might be: When the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana… When Neil Armstrong spoke those historic words “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”… When JFK was assassinated in Dallas.
Life is made up of thousands and thousands of unexceptional days, which pass like clouds drifting lazily across the horizon, punctuated by a handful of exclamation point days that fix themselves in our consciousness.
Perhaps those exclamation point days are simultaneously metaphors for our hopes, dreams and deepest desires. We hope to be more than ordinary. We dream of leaping off the page of life. We secretly desire to etch ourselves into the annals of time.
The where were you when, exclamation point days remind us that we’d better get on moving on our extravagant aspirations. For there is no guarantee that we’ll be around tomorrow to do what we didn’t have the courage to attempt today.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2 . Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week.
