Column: Revolutions on South Coast Plaza carousel serve as a metaphor for life

My wife, Hedy, and I spent part of a recent morning with our 5-year-old grandson, Judah, at South Coast Plaza.

We stopped for brioches and coffee (Judah had chocolate milk), visited the Disney Store, tossed coins into the fountain and rode the famous South Coast Plaza carousel.

Judah is not the first kid in our family to ride the carousel (the big one in the main mall, not the smaller version in what used to be known as Crystal Court). Not by a long shot. His two, 40-plus-year-old aunties rode decades ago. So did his mom and his seven cousins. I’ve taken them all on the carousel dozens of times over the years.

I remember a young woman with long blond hair — looking very much like Alice in Wonderland — who operated the carousel for a decade or longer in the late 1970s and ’80s. My kids came to view her as South Coast Plaza royalty.

I think of her today, every time we walk past the carousel.

I worked at Sears in the plaza my senior year of college, 1970-71. I was a sales clerk in the jewelry department and 25 years of age.

I sat on a bench the other morning watching Hedy and Judah on the carousel, waving at me on every revolution. The merry-go-round was aligned between my bench and Baby Gap, across Carousel Court.

Forty-eight years ago Baby Gap was a French restaurant. I’d walk there from Sears on Saturday and Sunday afternoons for lunch.

What if, I mused as I watched Hedy and Judah, 25-year-old me came sauntering down the aisle from Sears at just this moment? Instead of occupying the same space 48 years apart, we’d be in the same dimension at the same time. A trifling reshuffle of molecules by the one who fashioned a billion galaxies from the start.

And suppose 25-year-old me would glance over and see 73-year-old me seated munificently on the bench? Would we recognize each other? Would we acknowledge one another?

I’m convinced 25-year-old me wouldn’t give 73-year-old me a second thought. With my “white” (as Judah describes it) hair and goatee, and my cane propped against the bench, I’d be just another “doddering ancient” of no particular distinction or merit.

“Hey, you’d better look,” I felt like yelling into the ether from my bench. “Painful though it might be to gaze upon this fossil … you’ll be me in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

A couple of days later, Hedy and I drove the streets of Eastside Costa Mesa, where I grew up. We were several blocks from our beloved family home of more than 50 years.

I suddenly thought of Emily in the third act of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Remember how, after her death, the Stage Manager allows her to return to relive a happy day from her life: her 12th birthday? Ultimately, it becomes unbearably painful. Emily asks the Stage Manager to return her to the cemetery.

Her takeaway from the experience? Humans rush through life without savoring it. Nonchalance corrodes the soul.

As Hedy drove, I was tempted to say, “Hey, turn here, let’s go to the old homestead.” I didn’t.

What if we’d driven to the old house … and, magically, it was 1958?

I’d see my brother, Bill, and me (ages 11 and 13) playing basketball on the driveway, shooting at a backboard nailed to our roof above the garage. I was a head taller than he and would mercilessly pound him as I stole rebounds and scored over him.

Enjoy it while you can, Jim, in three summers he’ll tower over you.

In my “Emily moment,” I’d open the screen door and find my 34-year-old mom in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner. In my sister’s bedroom 7-year-old Judi would be arranging her favorite dolls, Amy and Deirdre.

Then I’d walk quickly through the living room (past our treasured color TV set) and out the back door to see my 36-year-old dad mowing the lawn.

Cookie, our cocker spaniel, would be chasing dad every trip across the backyard, barking and nipping at the wheels of our gas-powered mower.

How wonderful … and painful. Did those days really exist?

“Time for dinner, Hedy.”

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.