Present, Past, Future...

Looking east from near the AG building at NMSU. Strolling the campus, these clouds seemed stolid guards over the alma mater that day, possibly hinting of rain. Though the only moisture that day: emotional, edging the eyes, held back tenuously as these clouds probably held back their burden. Visiting a suffering friend in a nearby hospice, a brief respite on a once familiar campus...home for over five years forty years ago. Hands in pockets, a slow, deliberate stride. The hint of newly mown grass.

Thinking of several students who were now calling it home. Eager to explore independence. Anxious to learn new things. Impatient to join this world of adulthood that occasionally leaves a lump in one's throat as one pauses further along in that journey to peer back at the traversed path.  Down a few bumpy, gravel roads, an occasional freeway, some streams and rivers with inadequate bridges spanning them. These present youth, seeing it with the fresh eyes this writer once beheld it with. Excited about their new excursion into this "adult" world that will too soon be solely theirs. For this silent walker, living this present sadness, as yet another initiation into the heavy tolls often paid along that road either more or less traveled.