Monday, October 31, 2011

Just some thoughts ...

Last night, my Sunday dinner guest was a friend of  my stepdaughter Gwen. I have known Wendy since she was maybe 8 or 9 years old. She is unusually bright - Smith graduate, M.A. in Art Education. Anyway, I remember her as a preternaturally articulate child who always had something to say, because she was very observant.
Well, last night Wendy and I had a long postprandial conversation and, as is usually the case in conversations I have with Wendy, I came away with something I think worth sharing. I realized from what we had been talking about - family, growing up, etc. - that there is no real curve to life - a beginning, a middle, and an end, a resolution of a sort. It is all middle. If one is at all alert, it is just as mysterious as you near the end as it is from the beginning. The only difference is that, as your near curtain call, the sense of ... I don't quite know what to call it, though I feel it continuously. A certain apprehension for sure. One approaches the unknown. One does not feel fear. At least I don't. I feel ... on edge, alert to every nuance of being, even, I must sadly admit, on guard.
By the way, Wendy made a most pertinent comment about the poem I posted yesterday. She noticed how right it was that I used the contraction "What's," and not the phrase "what is."

2 comments:

  1. Following my own recent brushes with illness and near-death, the unknown isn't what causes me anxiety. I'm very comfortable most of the time with Mystery.

    What causes me anxiety, and creates a certain level of impatience with many things, is the feeling that I have so much more that I want to get done in the limited time that I have. I worry sometimes I might not get it all done. (Whatever it is. That menu varies.) It's a selfish feeling, I suppose, as no one but me really cares what more music and art I might produce. It's just that I want to do as much as I can with the time I have left, and I don't want to waste any of that time on useless drama.

    It IS hard to articulate, I agree. I wonder if any of that made sense to anyone but me. LOL

    Your friend Wendy sounds like someone well worth knowing.

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  2. To my mind one and all ought to look at this.

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