Looking Back Tomorrow

This particular reverie began late last night as I tried searching for a video of Bob Dylan performing "Mr. Tambourine Man," the center of a lecture for my Literature class which begins in approximately seven hours. As I saw image after image of Dylan, I eventually found a video of "A Hard Rain" taken from footage of the two-part Rolling Thunder concert tour in 1975 and 1976. I was mesmerized watching that curtain rise from behind him as he began singing: Oh, where have you been my blue-eyed son, and where have you been my darling young one... You can see Joan Baez singing in the background. I almost couldn't breathe--then and now.
As the camera panned the thousands of concert-goers in Fort Collins, Colorado, on May 23, 1976, I realized that Peter and I were in that audience. I was 21 and Peter was 24. The rain, symbolically, was falling hard as we stood in the quickly-becoming-mud area in front of the stage; although we had arrived early in the morning to be near the front, hundreds of people rushed the stage when the music began, and we were moved farther back on the grounds. At one point, I think Peter even put me on his shoulders so I could be out of the mud and see this man whose writing had been so important to me, to all of us at that time, as war was ending and colorblind, peaceful tolerance was a possible dream.
As I listened, heart aching, and watched this slice of the past of which I was a part, in a time-warp sort of way, my 2011 self watching my 1976 self, I thought of all that had happened in between that moment 35 years ago and this one--marriage, five daughters, two sons-in-law, two homes in two states, several jobs, Master's degree, a first grandchild on the way. In the last sixty days alone I have: seen the one-year anniversary of my daughter's death; lost my mother-in-law; attended the funeral of my son-in-law's grandmother; nearly flipped my van rushing to my daughter's baby shower; taken my doggie for surgery for removing a growing lump on her ankle (if doggies have ankles); rushed my youngest daughter to the emergency room with what I only hoped was asthma, but somehow knew was more--it was--blood clots in both her lungs. I realize that there were some important messages I wanted to collect for my grandson, soon to begin his moment in the earth's revolving glow of the sun and surrounded by music:
1) Love your mommy and daddy just because they love you and don't think about how funny they may have looked in those many years before you were born.
2) Enjoy your ice cream--it melts all too quickly.
3) If you're going to speed, and you will, do so only if you're going in a straight line. If you are at risk of swerving, even the tiniest bit, be sure you do so at no more than 5 mph.
4) When I play Bob Dylan for you, even if he sounds a bit off, read the words. Always, always, read the words.

http://www.wat.tv/video/bob-dylan-a-hard-rain-a-gonna-is13_2g7bz_.html
http://www.wat.tv/video/bob-dylan-joan-baez-nd1m_2fgqp_.html

To Peter and my girls: Mwah!