By Sherry Pasquarello.,WWH – (Pittsburgh in the 60′s)

Oh you know the words. We all know the words to the song. Nice thoughts.

Impractical, pretty much impossible but I couldn’t even imagine it. I’d listen, oh I still listen to the words every time it comes on the oldies station now(oh please, the OLDIES STATION!) but to allow my thoughts to fasten themselves up with those words like buttoning a warm coat on a raw day. No, why give myself the hope of a world like that one?

What I could do. What I have done. I’ve allowed myself to work for a bit better than before. I can imagine that. A little bit better. That’s easy if I try.

I imagined I could raise a child to be better at many things. A human being without the burden of learned fears and prejudices and gender roles taught to me and those of my generation at home and in the society at large. I did that. I could believe that a possibility.

I could “see” in my daydreams finding ways to improve my little space that I occupied wherever I might be at any moment on my path.

I couldn’t imagine everyone living in peace and harmony wearing the beatified sappy smiles of the saints in the pages of my catechism book . They looked like they were stoned out of their holy little minds! They weren’t going to improve anyone’s lives looking like that. Hell, they might be able to go for munchies but they were not up to interceding on people’s behalf. World wide peace wasn’t coming from above no matter who imagined it or imagined them gone.

I HOPED I would find some people along the way that thought a bit like I did. And I did. I wanted to be able to maybe change some hearts and minds to think of kindness as a strength and not a weakness. I might have. Even one person would make a difference. Like a ripple on a pond. Imagine Lennon’s world tho?

No. I’m glad that I didn’t, couldn’t. I think that if I could have, the enormity of the impossibility of it might have prevented me from trying anything at all. I could very easily imagine throwing up my hands in despair. Throwing in the towel. Worse yet, I can see what might have been if I had. What a waste that would have been.
Some people make big splashes. Some people make waves. Some just little ripples that are barely seen but go on til they reach a far away shore and touch the bare feet of a child playing in the sand.

Imagine that!

Read More Pittsburgh in the 60′s by Sherry Pasquarello.

Sherry Pasquarello is an eclectic little woman who has been published in the Individualist Newsletter, Black Roses, online at the Amateur Poetry Journal and the Alchemy lit. mag, and elsewhere. Sherry is a member of the international PK poetry kit list workshop and has been included in many of their projects. For more about Sherry check out her blog After the Bridge.