old pictures, new thoughts

My wife moves stuff around constantly--furniture, pictures, other stuff. I noticed last night that a picture of me from my high school graduation. She balanced it on the top of the bottom part of the window where my computer sits.

I look at that picture and can't quite come to grips that it is a picture of me. He's so young and clean-shaven--and his chin has been air brushed so it isn't nearly as sharp and distinct as mine is (covered by a beard grown for that purpose some 40+ years ago!). He reminds me of a song I don't know where I heard or why I remember or who performed it or anything except two lines:

"He has the cold, clear look of a seeker of wisdom and truth,
And an up-turned chin and grin of impetuous youth."

Well, yeal....my look is neither cold or clear anymore and my seeking of wisdom and truth devolved into a fascination with paradox and chaos. I still grin a lot but it is the grin of an aging white man who sometimes can remember 'being young' and though I'm still a bit impetuous, it is the impetuousness of a mischievous elderly man, not to be trusted completely....

Looking at him is like being lost and unstuck in time. How young, how optimistic, how much skinner! how dressed up, how air brushed to be almost handsome....

Sometimes we need to ponder where we came from and who we used to be and probably, in some way, still ARE. Not bad for a session of pondering....