A Lemon, Fritz Coleman, and Black Holes
When I stare out the window above my kitchen sink I see a lemon tree. Though it grows on my neighbor’s land, its branches hang over our common fence. For several months there has been a single lemon hanging on that tree, but yesterday morning I noticed it was gone. I considered mounting a search, but I was in my bathrobe and didn’t care to walk outside, even for a free lemon. And I definitely was not going to climb the fence.
Last Friday, Fritz Coleman, weatherman at the local NBC channel, retired after almost forty years on the job. When he took the job he told the TV station he was a comedian, not a meteorologist. They hired him anyway. The station wanted a weathercaster who was entertaining, and he certainly was.
Yesterday evening, Daveen and I watched a PBS documentary about black holes. Apparently scientists now believe that a supermassive black hole exists at the center of each galaxy in the universe, including our own. They predict that these black holes, more massive than a million of our suns, will eventually eat everything within their gravitational pull. I guess that means that in a few billion, or few trillion, years (does it really make a difference?) black holes will consume the universe.
Maybe then there will be another “big bang”.
What do these three stories have in common — a lemon, Fritz Coleman, and black holes?
Each of them has performed a disappearing act from my life.
When I was young, I wrote the following line: “Life is loss.” I still believe that, but my current view is larger.
For months I observed that lemon up close and personal. Now it’s disappeared. Since I have already picked every lemon from my own trees, I guess I’ll have to buy my lemons at the grocery store until Fall.
Thirty years ago when I watched the evening news regularly, I enjoyed Fritz Coleman, both for his whimsy and for providing a weather prediction for the next day. I watched his final TV appearance last Friday. Now he’s gone, and today I look up weather for anywhere in the world on my iPhone.
When I was in middle school I studied astronomy. At that time black holes were just a theory envisioning a mysterious celestial object with such a strong gravitational pull no light could escape. My most specific memory from science class is that on one quiz I named, in order, all nine of the planets of our solar system (those were the days before Pluto was demoted). Because I was a smart aleck, I also threw in the asteroids. Because I misspelled “asteroids” the teacher gave me a C+ instead of the A or A- that I undoubtedly deserved.
Life is a process of waking up, absorbing data, making decisions, and ultimately letting go. And, like a black hole which we can never actually see (inside its borders), we are truly known only to ourselves, and no one else, before we disappear.
Life is not only loss, but also a wonderful adventure. I enjoy so many memories, and now those include a lemon, Fritz Coleman, and all of the black holes that vanish the moment they are born.
Alan