Tale Weaver – #165 – Longing

Tale Weaver – #165

Longing

“This week I’m asking you to explore the concept of longing. What is it you long for? Health, holiday, freedom, love, understanding, acceptance.”

What do I long for?

It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a pizza or a Hershey’s with almonds candy bar but I can’t really say I long for either of those.

Are you old enough to remember the Viewmaster toy? It was shaped more or less like a pair of binoculars only smaller and it was all plastic. You’d get these cardboard discs with small photo images and you’d ‘view’ the photo images in the Viewmaster. The photo images looked sort of like film negatives only they were in color and there were a dozen or so images per disc and the discs were anything from a cartoon to a story or book adaptation to a travelogue or a TV show tie-in. You’d slide the disc into the top of the Viewmaster and press it down into place and when the disc was set in place, then between the two eyepieces there was a small hole that lined up with the text on the disc that described the image you were going to look at. So for example you slide the disc into the Viewmaster and you’d read the line that described the image, something maybe like, “Bugs Bunny looks for something to do.” and then you’d put it up to your eyes and look through it and you’d see a picture of Bugs Bunny looking around for something to do in 3D. Then there was a lever on the side of the thing that’d press down and that would advance the disc to the next picture. You’d lower it and read the next description, maybe something like, “Elmer Fudd is hunting for food when he spots Bugs Bunny waking up.” and you’d look inside and see Elmer Fudd pointing his rifle at a yawning Bugs. My description isn’t doing the toy any real justice so I’ll stop by saying that for a 10-year-old kid it was a pretty cool toy and it’s, from what I can remember, the closest thing we had to a virtual reality device 50+ years ago. So, that’s a long story to get to a short story . . .

Why this is important will make sense in about another 100 words.

And it’s also been a long time since I’ve had a bacon cheeseburger but I don’t long for one of those either.

I long for the people I love who are no longer here and when I think of them an image will fly across my consciousness. Now I don’t visualize particularly well so it’s not like I’m “seeing” these people in my mind’s eye like playing back a memory or anything like that because my mind’s eye is, for the most part, blind. It’s more like a flash of awareness or recognition or something; some other form of “memory” that I can’t describe, and it comes and then goes and then it’s replaced by another one and usually it happens fast and it’s sort of like a mental Viewmaster only instead of pressing down the little lever to advance the frame I just blink.

Blink. Dad.
Blink. Grandma and Grandpa.
Blink. Dad.
Blink. Friends.
Blink. Dad.
Blink. Dad.
Blink. Dad.

I long for those people in my life who are no longer physically in my life.

I long for good books and good music and good movies.

I long for good words.

I long for good humor.

I long for a country where politicians and leaders truly care for the people they represent.

I long for a world that treats all living beings humanely.

I long for equity, inclusion, tolerance and social justice for everyone.

I long to know what happened to Tony Soprano.

I long for a pear that doesn’t bruise with even the lightest touch.

I long for the Twins to win the World Series.

And I long for somebody to love.