Sep
27
Back in the family rafting/Rogue river days, we would always stop at the Galice Resort for vanilla soft serve cones and drinks on their giant deck overlooking the water. It was an iconic part of the visit, a deeply enjoyable and familiar place. And then in 2021, it burned damn near to the ground, some sort of electrical fire that left nothing but a boat shed and a gravel parking lot.
Even when you know bone-deep that the world does not stay the same, sometimes a thing can catch you completely off guard. Like what do you mean this place we went to over and over and assumed we’d always be able to go to just, like, burned the fuck down?
They built part of it back, eventually. It’s not the same, but you can still go get a drink, listen to some live music sometimes. And of course our little family is not the same. I doubt there will be a time when the four of us are there again.
Is it harder to lose something important when you don’t see it coming, or when the ending is planned? I would say the former is worse, it can be shocking and there’s no way to prepare. On the other hand, you can be ready for a thing and then it’s nothing like you imagined.
Well. Yesterday I said my goodbyes to Little Joe. I can’t say I took him for granted, exactly, but even with his age in mind I suppose I just pictured riding him forever somehow. I could and could not believe that I was cleaning his stall for the very last time, taking him out for one final graze.
Everything is temporary, the moments we want to wish away and those that we want to cling to with pry-them-from-me-when-I’m-dead fingers. I feel like that is the greatest lesson of aging, how important it is to experience the things we enjoy as best we can before they too are gone.
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