Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier. – Alfred Lord Tennyson New Year’s resolutions for me are…
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How do we put fairly into
Nicely wrapped words all that you were, as if
We wer
“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold onto. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.” —Lau Tzu
There is no instruction manual for this: When we know someone close to us is going to die and can do nothing to change the course yet would if we could.
My dad and I are are starting to say “so long” to each other. His cancer, discovered over the 4th of July, is terminal. We don’t know how much time he has. The doctors say a few weeks or a few months. There is no cure and no way to stop the cancer.
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“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” – Anne Sexton
I can’t do a Top 10 list as a blog post. Or even a Top Five.
They are so ubiquitous and from people with more refined tastes than I that another one from me would contribute nothing to the conversation. Not only are we inundated with so many “how to’s” at the start of the new year, but we also are given platefulls of what to read, listen to, see, do. How do I keep up?
Instead, I like where essayists offer snapshots of what they’re into in the moment. I almost always read, “What I’m reading now” or “What I’m listening to.” One doesn’t have to wait until December or January to proclaim a series of bests—music, books, places, etc. Another example of well-crafted
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“The French word for wanderlust or wandering is ‘errance.’ The etymology is the same as ‘error.’ So to wander is to make mistakes. In other words, to make mistakes, to make errors is sort of the idea of learning through trial and error, allowing the mistakes to be part of the process.” — Robyn Davidson
When I was about 22, I read a book by William Least Heat Moon called Blue Highways. It was about his journey across the backroads of the country, avoiding interstates and encountering the characters he believed you wouldn’t meet traveling the main highways, the ones marked in red on most maps. I also read Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, an account of the novelist’s 10,000-mile journey in a self-built camper with his beloved poodle Charley.
Both books captivated me. Ever since I have been fascinated by the concept of the road trip. Adventure. The unknown. Living by one’s own abilities with no agenda, no accountability to anyone but oneself…and maybe a dog. A journey of true self-discovery. Both writers felt compelled to seek answers to questions deep inside and believed the road would provide answers.
Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the car. Too much. Not for fun so much but for work. Driving to Indy. Driving to Madison. Driving to Iowa, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville. Downtown. Downstate. Up north. Middle-of-nowhere.
Odyssey / noun/ od-ys-sey/an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest; an odyssey of self-discovery; a spiritual odyssey from disbelief to faith.
At some point I decided life on the road was not worth it, at least under the circumstances in which I found myself. Too much time away from family. I missed out on important moments in the lives of my kids and the people I cared about. In fact, it felt as though I was living separate lives.
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“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”–Anatole France
I’ve buried two beloved pets in my life. It’s one of the least pleasant parts of living in this world. I buried Callie, my first dog, 15 years ago. A piece of me was buried when I lay her into the ground. Sorry for being so morose.
When Elin and I let our vet inject our cat Lycklig with the drug that would soon stop her heart it brought back in nightmarish fashion the same experience I had with Callie, my sweet chocolate Labrador with whom I enjoyed years of three-hour walks and long runs and snuggling on the couch in violation of house rules. In that life, when I would come home from work, Callie came to me wagging her entire 90 lb. body and whining with joy. Sometimes she got so excited she peed.
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