Reunions

Damn, was that another week that just flew by...

I just saw some pictures on Facebook of yet another of my High School reunions that I didn't attend. People smiling, enjoying a moment together, being who they once were one more time, their wonderful lived faces beaming; a few whom I now only vaguely remember mixed with the few that I will never forget.

Funny thing memory ... our lives and destiny plays out before us and occasionally we rewind in the mind's eye vignettes of those moments, good and bad, reliving events and emotions for as many reasons as there are memories. It seems to me however that each time we hit the rewind button the details of those memories get a little altered, like some photocopy that over the course of time loses more and more of the original's detail. Things that happened around us and to us fade with each viewing, perhaps to better suit our inner dialogue, or our changing perspectives on self and others, until inevitably it is truly a unique memory, different from the memories of that moment held by others.

I guess reunions are a way to retouch those memories, bring them back into sharper focus. For some I suppose they relish the opportunity to share those memories to replay the scenes of their lives, to be with those who lived their time, to be remembered as they were, or at least as they wish they were. While others.... maybe not so much. They have little desire to be reminded of their story, good or bad, for these few the past is better left behind.

I'm not one of the latter, although I'm certainly not judging that choice, for me memories are powerful stories ... stories that can continue to shape our lives. If used wisely these vignettes of life can become the touchstones to a life well lived, no matter if the memory was good or bad  ... but if used poorly memories can hold you back from your potential.

On the other hand memories, and in particular sharing memories, can be well.... just plain fun ... sorry I missed you guys!

 PS   Cathy, you are as beautiful today as you were when you were seventeen.

Okay ... I'm up

Somedays I'm just plain tired .... right to my bones.

But, I get up just the same. I put on my tarnished armour and drag my sorry butt out of the castle one more time ... all the while hoping to God that the dragons have slept in.

The Corporate Conga Line

Dance, dance wherever you may be ...

Choice

If we have the intellectual capacity to exercise choice, then it's all about the choices we make - life that is.

We all make them, choices; big ones, small ones, in-between ones. Choice is at the center of our lives, in fact there are so many choices to make that we need to introduce all kinds of shortcuts just to make living possible. Shortcuts like how we get dressed, where to buy our morning coffee, what to say to the people we don't know but see every day (often numerous times). These "routines" are a good thing, without them we'd probably never get anything done. But whether automated or not, these actions we do are choices. Choices we make and which we could also unmake ... not necessarily easily ... but we could choose differently. But we chose, always.

There’s danger in not recognizing that you make choices, always. Dangers like, not accepting accountability for the consequences of your choices, or more importantly the real possibility, dare I say likelihood, of you continuing to make choices which are, well, really bad.

In making choices then, even a choice that may be a choice of one, we exercise a truly innate freedom, and while the choice we make might not always be the preferred or ideal choice, it is still of our making.

Now, you can suggest or argue that there are occasions where one has no real choice, but I’m not sure that’s really true. We are always free to make a choice, even when we are forced or threatened with only one alternative. These situations may not be terribly comfortable, or pretty, or just, but a choice they remain ... at the very least a choice to comply or not. Claiming no choice is really more often an application to a convention of convenience, an application that others will often approve, with appropriate sympathies, if only to maintain easy access themselves to that remedy on some future occasion.

Yes nothing more comfy, I think we can all agree, than a nice pair of fuzzy victim slippers … Oh the humanity, the bliss of having our conscience bunions so readily relieved.

Mother's Day

It’s Mother’s Day.

Now I could take this thought in a few different directions. I could recount its historical references, regal you with its various manifestations or lack thereof around the world. I could just as easily rail against it as some offensive and sweeping generalization that ignores the harsh reality that some mothers don’t live up to any notion of motherhood, or I could point out that there are many women who have chosen alternative paths, and while they may celebrate or not this day with their own mothers, they are, for various reasons good or sad, living a life without children and this day could serve to alienate many of them. I could ride on Mother’s Day and use it to raise my voice in protest or concern on some tangential issue, of which I am sure there are many equally good and equally sad. Yes there are a number of things I could say in relation to Mother’s Day and mothers, including the most appropriate and obvious for my life.

Thanks Mom ... for literally everything.

Saturdays

I’m ambivalent towards my Saturdays now.

I march to the beat of a Monday to Friday, Weekends off drum – so Saturday is allegedly my break from the parade. Saturday is the day I don’t technically have to go to work (although I can be found there more often than I care to admit) ... on Saturday’s I get to do something else; something I really want to do like.... mow the lawn, or go shopping, or wash the car, or clean the house, or whatever other administrative detail that needs my special skills and attention.

Yes, I know there are people who love doing all of those things, in fact even I like ironing (really I do), but no matter how much “grin and bear it”, “whistle while you work”, “live the moment”, rationalization I attempt. I can’t get past the thought that all these weighty responsibilities, these lists of things that must be done; serve only to suck up my ever dwindling allotment of time on this blue planet.  I’m not saying that life is one big chore, or a seemingly endless series of administrative routines, separated by brief moments of distraction (golf, drinks with friends, vacations, dirty weekends, church) I’m just saying . . .  my Saturday’s really aren’t what they use to be ... the Saturday’s of my youth that were, and remain in my mind ... magical.... when I really got to do what I wanted (without trading off something else, or making a pact with the devil, ignoring what was expected of me, etc) like going fishing with my buddy Steve and his little brother Danny, the three of us swimming in the river in our underwear chasing turtles, smoking an old cigar butt we found and getting caught up in a tree surrounded by cows.

Now those were Saturdays.

Blast from the past

An e-mail popped up today, nothing extraordinary in that of course, we all receive dozens of theses micro letters every day, but this one stood out from the daily deluge, the sender's name bringing back a flood of memories and feelings. It wasn't from an old sweetie, or some long lost friend. It was from a former colleague, a young man who once worked "for me", if reporting to someone in the corporate food chain can be described that way. He found his way to me, he expained, through a friend of a friend; I guess that happens more and more these days with all of us plugged in like so many Kevin Bacons.

I described him as a young man, but he's not so young now, some 10 or 12 years later but that's how I remember him, young, bright, full of promise and maybe a little wonder. I liked him, he was good at what he did, he was fun to be around and we were developing that kind of working relationship in which we would both learn and benefit.

We worked at one of those shady acronym government places that sounds intriguing to everyone who doesn't work there. Unfortunately for our budding corporate partnership he found another acronym to work for, one that offered him regular exotic travel and I suspect better heeled company. So we parted ways, and I never really expected to hear from him again, only about him. But here he was e-mailing me and in doing so opening up doors I haven't looked behind in years. And despite some reluctance to have those doors opened again (long story) it was great to hear from him. I don't know if we will reconnect in the real world, this may just one of those "facebook moments", you know the kind where you connect in the ether, get up to speed in three or four missives and then return to ... well, nothing really ... I hope not, but my track record is pretty weak here ...

I really should do something about that ... tomorrow.

Welcome

I was driving the other day to visit my kids, a daughter 21 and a son 18, they live a couple of hours away, it was one of those perfect driving days, dry and bright with only a few cars on the road. The trip normally takes a couple of hours and usually I'm trying to make good time, but this day, I was all about the journey. I had purposefully turned off the radio, I wasn't interested in listening to music or gab and certainly not the news and its litany of grey. Instead I wanted to think, not about anything in particular, just about whatever it was that I knew would be sitting at the back of my head waiting for all the other busy noise to settle down. I don't know about you, but there are a lot of voices in my head - I don't mean strange voices telling me to vote conservative or buy a chainsaw - but voices that sound out my life. The bits of daily conversation, disagreements, laughs, troubles, desires, frustrations, pain, joy and the random stuff that arrives uninvited. Anyway, I was hoping to quiet all that noise down and give it, the voice in the back of my head, a chance to say what it wanted to say. I am never quite sure what is going to come out. But I do know, that when I take the time to really listen, I am better for it.

It didn't disappoint.

You see the voice, the one from the back of my head, is the wise one, the one that waits until I'm ready and then puts into words that which I really need to hear. It does not admonish me, it simply presents another story. Stories of other possibilities ... of different perspectives ... of alternative views.

I like that voice - the best of me is heard through that voice. Unfortunately it speaks so softly that it's often hard for me to hear it clearly through the din.

P.S. I had a great visit with my kids.