Vacation Slides & Prozac

The trip is over. The kids are belly-aching about school and it's time to go back to work. The last two weeks happened about that fast. Flipping through the volumes of pictures from the holidays brought a fat grin to my face, but like always, it also induced a strong sense of longing for at least a day or two more with my boys. Every time I see them it seems a time warp has occurred launching them farther and farther into the future in a matter of seconds. Noah turned 10, Harrison is starting to read, and Sawyer tells me I'm fired in a tone worthy of a guest spot on The Apprentice.

By all accounts, a good time was had by the lot of us. Allie and Avery meshed very well with Noah, Harrison and Sawyer. They all were very excited to meet one another and when the novelty wore off they acted pretty much like brothers and sisters would, a few spats here, a hug there, and allot of playing together. The girls, I have to add, were great during all the traveling to and fro. They were little darlings the whole time and I was very proud of them.

I tend to become very maudlin for the next several weeks following visits with my sons, a feeling only made worse by the lack of firm certainty in when we will be together again. Besides reviewing the pictures over and over, I play the video games we all like by myself and look up discussion points related to Star Wars or LEGOS or whatever topic was the subject of some great debate between us during the break. Unfortunately, however, it's like trying to capture the moment on an Etch-a-Sketch - everything is two dimensional, and with a few shakes of circumstance those images are gone.

Still, it was a happy time that I tried to depict in a short slide show/movie to the stylings of Coldplay (yes, Lois gives me the dickens about them). I picked this song specifically, one, because it's a B-side to Speed of Sound thus making it cool because it's a B-side; and two, for the lyrics which I've included for reading before you watch the video.

I don't like to put limits on expression which is to say everyone is free to take their own meaning from the words. But to me, they represent the idea that despite the uncertainty, the uncontrollable, and the unfairness we all deal with, life just wouldn't be as rich without those elements whether we understand why they occur or not. I often feel this way about my own circumstances, but it's not sympathy I'm seeking when I say this to others. As I've often been reminded, if it's sympathy I'm looking for then it can be found in the dictionary, somewhere between "sh*t" and "syphilis." Instead, this thought is a reminder that had everything gone my way, then maybe I would take my life and the people in it for granted.

Things I Don't Understand

- Coldplay

How tides control the sea

And what becomes of me

How little things can slip out of your hand

How often people change

No two remain the same

Why things don't always turn out as you planned

These are things that I don't understand

Yeah these are things that I don't understand

I can't (and I can't)

decide

Wrong (oh my wrong)

from right

Day (oh my day)

from night

Dark (oh my dark)

from light

I love (but I love)

this life

How infinite is space

And who decides your fate

Why everything will dissolve into sand

How to avoid defeat

Where truth and fiction meet

Why nothing ever turns out as you planned

These are things that I don't understand

Yeah these are things that I don't understand

I can't (and I can't)

decide

Wrong (oh my wrong)

from right

Day (oh my day)

from night

Dark (oh my dark)

from light

I love (but I love)

this life

Songwriters: Guy Berryman, Jon Buckland, Will Champion, & Chris Martin