Mike and I passed by a McDonald’s last evening on our way to Townsend, TN. A McDonald’s just like every other McDonald’s. And within the now commonly enclosed playground were the bouncing, playing, climbing children you see upon passing any and every other McDonald’s in this crazy, godforsaken country (and now world) of ours.

And just as we were passing… ‘Dust In The Wind’ by Kansas was playing on Mike’s stereo via my iPhone. It was one of ‘those moments’. One of those moments that you know means something on a cosmic level… and reminds you of how very small you are outside of your own tiny existence.

For in 5 years we could pass that McDonald’s and see a new sub-generation of children climbing that same indoor playground.

And in 20 years, though everything else around it might change, (strip malls torn down, two lane roads widened to four, the old bowling alley gone and replaced with some generic, nationwide, chain bank & loan… and perhaps even the McDonald’s itself have moved two blocks away and on the opposite side of the street) …

As we pass yet again we will see yet another generation playing on the possibly new and updated version of that McDonald’s playground.

Children. Playgrounds. Youth. The pains of growing up. Adulthood. And then happens the moment we miss… when the cycle begins all over again while we are busy trying to survive the piece of cosmic time and landscape upon which we came into this world.

And while last night was one of those cosmic moments… it wasn’t honestly one that lessened all these (mostly) amazing moments of my own… or made me feel cheated in any way by the fact that maybe I really am just a particle of dust in the wind.

For I know, as does anyone who knows me personally, that I am a pretty damned intense particulate of dust matter who demands her own massive real-estate of dust matter space… and who, when all is said and done, will have carved a hole in the reality of time at least large enough that the world will remember that I had been there.

But those children will still be on the playground. Drive by. Any day. And see.

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The water upon the land and the dust in the wind have created some breathtaking things in this world. Never forget that… in what can be our own state of smallness…

Neddick Shore, Maine – 2002

Turtle Falls, Tennessee – 2008

Sunrise @ Turtle Falls, Tennessee – 2008

Mt Denali Sky – 2009

Mt Denali Painted Landscape – 2009

Latourell Falls, Oregon – 2009

Alyeska, Alaska – 2009

Sunrise on Alum Cave Trail, TN – 2010

Wild and Scenic Obed River – 2010

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I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity

Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won’t another minute buy

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind