Thoughts or something
Well, the big thing for me right now is my basement. Looks like S is going to go to her sister's for a couple of months with A leaving me alone to renovate the basement. It's funny, I'm actually sorta looking forward to the work, the physical labour of building the rooms and such. But I have the strongest feeling that I'll never get to use it. Maybe I'm paranoid or something (wait, yes, I know I'm paranoid) but it just feels like there's a twist up ahead waiting to appear once the work is done (or a bunch done anyway).
Maybe it has to do with S's health...which has been at issue lately. Bleeding being where it ain't supposed to be, and liver counts that sound more like bank balances than blood levels. Add to that the fact that even she said to me the other day "I get the feeling that while I'm away I'll find something interesting and I'll try to convince you to move down to California". But we all know that isn't going to happen. She may go there and she may stay there, but I'll be staying here.
I feel sad, knowing that my son will be going. And based on the feelings I've been getting he'll be going for longer than a few months, but at the same time it feels "right" if anything like that can. It feels like it's the way it's supposed to be, let's put it that way. I know this is the way it has to go, the way it has to be. And I accept that. I made this reality for myself, tasked myself with what I would face, what I would do. Everything I've seen lately has told me I'm "on course", so I carry forward to learn the lessons I must for this go 'round.
Paved paradise, put up a parking lot
Do you know what the Paradise was?
It was a set of apartments in Hollywood, at the corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights. It was an amazing place, a luxurious, exclusive community where the stars of the day lived and loved and partied and orgied and everything. I seem to remember having heard that Clark Gable or someone like that swam naked in the fountain once. They tore the place down sometime later, sometime after the stars had all abandoned Hollywood. It's an El Pollo Loco or something like that now.
All this as introduction to say that the song of the above line has come to play a role in my latest round of lesson learning. I take the hint, I really do. I mean, I'm talking at work to a co-worker about Joni Mitchell and that song...the line "don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone" one day. The next day what shows up in my horoscope? "The key to success, at all levels of life, is adaptability. Make the most of what you have rather than wishing things were otherwise. Behind all this, there is a hidden opportunity. " So like I say, I get the hint.
It's all part of this "live in the now" thing. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about this...trying to figure out what the heck that means. And I'd been slipping into more of a "coulda shoulda woulda" mindset of late, so it was a wakeup call. I know that. And even better, I think I understand now. I think I get the "live in the now" thing. Make the most of what you have, not wish you had otherwise. I think I get it now. It's an effort. I'll have to keep trying, keep learning, but I do get it. I think.
So I guess I should say thanks Joni. Thanks for the big yellow taxi.
Changes in direction
I got to thinking the other day about how big small things can really be. I mean how what seems small and inconciquential at the time can have huge (and I do mean huge) effects later on. The example I was thinking of was regarding E, and what her life might have been like if I'd not stuck my nose in at that juncture when I did. If I hadn't pursued that need to talk to her and get to knw her (again), where would she be? And where would I be for that matter?
I suspect that she would have moved on to another job somewhere else as all students seem to at our place. I hope she'd have been happy. And me, I wonder if I'd have gone to California like I did? I suspect I would have but I also suspect that I'd have ended up doing myself in down there too. Either that or I'd have ended up a frustrated, bitter old man wondering what he'd missed in life if things had gone differently.
It's difficult to imagine how someone so important, someone who so fills my thoughts might have just passed by like that...I mean, she's now such a huge part of my life, and such an influence and teacher. And but for that talk, I'd never have known her. Terrifying really when I think about it, so I don't like to.
I found the card that she gave me when I left and I almost cried when I read it, talking about our friendship and how she hoped we'd stay in touch. I thought of all that has passed in that short span of time since then and I'm just so amazed and astounded. That has only been five years, so what does the next five hold? Your future is never a thing of the past. And the promise of the future for us is something I look forward to with all my heart.
(composed and posted on my pilot...neat eh?)
