The future before it happens
"In this day of mini-marts and fast food outlets, quick lubes and fast traffic, the small cabin ... is a thing of pure beauty ..." — Rheta Grimsley Johnson
Lying next to this legal pad, as I write, is a photograph. The scene is a woodland. In it are two little golden-haired children. Their names are neatly printed on the back: "Danae and Oriel".
They are shown standing on a porch, seemingly about to descend two steps fashioned out of rough-hewn logs.
Just beyond the bottom tread there is a dog lying on the ground; I will not hazard a guess about its pedigree. From another photograph I can sense its friendly nature, and I know that its tail rides like a horizontal banana behind it even as it lies upon the ground. It is not the least bit concerned with the camera.
The angle of the camera was tilted slightly upwards. The porch and steps are connected to an equally rough-hewn small log cabin. It is situated somewhere in south-west Scotland. It is a clear and sunny day.
Leaning against the side of the cabin, with its handle resting atop the box below, is what appears to be a five pound sledge hammer. Two different kinds of hand saws hang beneath the window. On the ground, to the left, there is a small blue metal container of what is probably propane gas.
The well-worn path up to the steps tells me that the place has been — and is — a haven of comfort to the earthly senses of its occupants both young and old.
The horseshoe nailed to the right side of the cabin's door speaks volumes to me of the family's hopes for good luck. As I make this observation, I am aware that the family's luck has largely been a product of sweat and labour; it has never been promised, to any family member.
Closer observation reveals that the season is mid-spring. The tall but nearly naked trees have not yet burst into their full summer finery. For the most part they are dressed in the same rustic bark as are the logs of the cabin that they surround.
A single bush, in the early stages of its yearly bloom, obscures the full view of the porch. Surely the coming summer foliage will engulf the cabin so much so that the casual camper trekking by will not know it is there. The little rise that it sits on was very well chosen. I wish that I could share a night with those woods, in that cabin.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Grimsley Johnson's words are poignant. She wrote, "I [am] not sure what in the human psyche compels us to revere and romanticize the past and fear the future".
She was writing about suicide, but I have come to realise that many fear what the future might bring even when they have had no experience with suicide. I think it has to do with a fear of the unknown.
Yes, it is true that many of us romanticise those portions of the past that we have come to appreciate, and it is a good thing that we do, because we need the past — for better or worse — to help shape the future. The future is in the hands of our children.
I know Danae and Oriel's grandparents. It is because of what I know of them, and others not unlike them, that I have very little fear of a future that will be either directly or indirectly in the capable hands of adults who were once the wide-eyed children of the cabin shown in this photograph. The future will be safe in their adult hands.
The goodness and life of the future, while not guaranteed, will be saved every time that a child is put in touch with his or her past while (s)he is still growing in the tender years of childhood.
In this photograph, the future is being secured by Danae and Oriel's presence in our collective past. What is now going into their hearts is clearly written on their little faces.
I place a lot of trust in children. When I look upon these children, I know that the truth referred to in Rainer Maria Rilke's words is truth's security that I need not fear the future in children: "The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens".
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]