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DEFINITELY WITH A 'D'
Neon Lights, Desert Rain, & Thomas Edison
It is a time when Earth chases Mars in a galactic courting of two playful and evasive partners. We are the first to witness such a fiasco since many centuries ago. If you’ve taken the time to look, you can see the reddish tint of Mars sparkling through millions of miles of space to settle on us. We move in our own orbits, passing each other on the stairs, streets, and in the spotlight of our own spherical paths. There are other events we get to witness for the first time. Expectations are plentiful, especially here in Ogden. It is often heard out on the street that ‘if we build it, they will come.’ Or at least that is the mentality we seem to have. It is as if the majority of the masses are waiting just within the doorways of their homes, checking both ways, unsure if Ogden is safe. Maybe they are waiting for neon signs posted in the yard to indicate the secret of life or yesterday’s news. The thing is there are neon signs flashing in the streets. They are flashing alongside poster boards, marquees, murals, and paintings that reaffirm life is happening now in Ogden. Something tells me we can’t afford to wait for outside people and influences to fill the vacancies and empty lots. If we aren’t comfortable in our own home—as new and refurnished as it may appear—what makes us think a guest will feel differently? Expectations are inspiring and detrimental at the same time. Of course we need to have something to look forward to, but if we aren’t paying attention to the present moment then the future will never be the now. Each individual day is a rare creature that dawns into breath and flees into the night of tomorrow. Dreams without vision are rain in the desert. Fleeting, flashing and dissipating into high noon, they are rare and few and far between. I think when a dream solidifies and becomes more than just a mere wish or ideal it transforms into a vision with full-plated armor and a plan of attack; a constituted strategy with logistics and tactics to carry through. Dreams are hopes and aspirations we would like to see realized but for some reason, don’t. There is a time when it either loses momentum and falls flat, carried away in the flood of conformity, or when it crystallizes into the more tangible vision. Look at the hopes and wants of the various generations. It was a dream of Martin Luther King Jr. for all men, no matter what the color of skin, to get along, to accept and be accepted. Thomas Edison stayed awake hours upon hours through long dreamless nights to envision electricity harnessed into light. The Wright brothers must have dreamt of flight so much that birds were probably attracted to their winged optimism. The concepts of flight, faster flight, and space travel were a progression. Of course, we all ‘dream’ of a better world, no matter how close it may be to the Red Planet located far across the solar system. Man has feared for generations that mankind would eventually implode, having created problems that outnumbered its progressive but lagging answers. Yet somehow we keep going, progressing, digressing, moving in accordance with the signs, making our own signs. To me it is appropriate that we can look up and see neon red Mars twinkling along side sister Moon. This is one of the better ‘signs’ we have had for a long while. One doesn’t have to be an astrologer or astronomer to get the gist.