Quote of the Day (Tom Hanks, on Squandering Time)

“I’m 68, and I must say, I view time differently. I used to think a day was 36 hours long, and now I’m convinced it’s only 18. I never get done what I want. I guess I’m aware of being on the back nine — that time is a very, very finite thing. And to squander it, I think it’s a sin.”—Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks quoted by Melena Ryzik, “A New Age For Some Old Friends,” The New York Times, Nov. 3, 2024

The image accompanying this post, of Tom Hanks at the premiere of his film Elvis, was taken June 6, 2022, by Eva Rinaldi from Abbotsford, Australia.

Song Lyric of the Day (Bruce Springsteen, for Those We’ll ‘Meet and Live and Love Again’)

“I'll see you in my dreams
When all the summers have come to an end
I'll see you in my dreams
We'll meet and live and love again.”—American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” from his Letter to You CD (2020)
 
Bruce Springsteen, my favorite musician, was born 72 years ago today in Long Branch, New Jersey. My favorite album of his nearly five-decade career remains the first one I encountered by him as a high-school sophomore, Born To Run, a song collection revolving about youth, yearning and searching and running for a place in the world.
 
But over the last year, I have also felt an emotional tug towards the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer’s Letter to You. Inspired partly by the loss of former bandmate George Theiss, it is not about lives in motion, but those at eternal rest. Rather than the summers of Springsteen’s youth, heated by the desires for love and all his music could achieve, he is now, as in the attached photo, accepting that winter is here.
 
Like many other people—and particularly those in my baby boomer age group—I’ve lost more than the usual number of relatives and friends in the last year, to both COVID and non-COVID-related issues. So, whenever I’ve listed to The Boss’s mournful meditation on loss and mortality, their images come to mind with insistent poignancy, along with the assurance I share with Springsteen that we’ll rejoice again in the afterlife.