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I’m asked to identify two or three shapes to frame my objective. I have one.
I am a labyrinth, starting life in the center, wrenched outside at the age of seven. My life upended by a mystical experience, innocence lost. Fifty years stumbling back to center. Searching for meaning. Afraid.
And then unafraid. Using a labyrinth to organize words uncovered in forty-day journeys, codified in journals, looking for patterns. Entering the experience, meditating, demystifying Nothingness. Writing my story.
So what…..
When I think of autumn, my mind wanders back to high school cross country days. Entering a private school in Hillside as a high school freshman, I was out of my element. Only a few miles away from my Elizabeth junior high, it seemed like another world. Everybody had to participate in a fall team sport, either soccer, football or cross country. I was too small for football, never played soccer but knew how to run. So I went out…..
Today’s prompt is a beautiful picture of a new snowfall gracing a city park, an old stately building barely visible in a white out, the park pathway leading into it. There’s one person in the picture behind his car, considering what comes next. The snow is pristine.
Let’s consider the fallout, city workers clearing the streets with snowplows, sidewalks yielding to snowblowers and shovels. Preparing for normalcy.
My experience with snow is colored by the gray of the clearing, sometimes…..
Mid-day Sunday, time for our FaceTime with Ali and Matilda. They call us from their living room in Paris. We are being broadcast on the big screen TV, up front and personal. Sam is off stage, technical support available as needed. We’re pretty big, Ali has told us. Matilda is up front and center, now almost 10 months of age, nestled in Ali’s lap. A big smile appears on her face, her left arm waving, then her right arm following. …..
I’m instructed to start writing here. Oh, and write about debacle. That’s it
Well, let’s see, I could write about the election, but I’m already tired of that.
I could write about the weather, there’s not much of a debacle there, but we are having a drought. We have well water, so without more rain, we would run out of water, the pipes could freeze, I could work myself into a frenzy of worry. That would be a debacle.
I…..
I can’t hear very well. It’s probably getting a little worse, it will never get better.
I can’t see very well. It’s been a long time, remembering asking Penny if the blackboard was blurry in Accounting class. I got glasses and have been wearing them ever since.
I don’t have hearing aids, they’re for old people. I may be older but I’m not old.
I really can’t hear a lot of words when I watch movies. I’ve heard that it’s…..
Would you recognize me now?
Here I sit, thinking back on the principled idealist of my youth.
Would you be proud of who we are?
Hard life lessons upended idealism.
Looking back, finding pieces of you.
Enjoying many of the same things, sports, travel, reading.
I still carry your sorrow, the touch of madness.
Things that matter most are different now, our soul is still the same.
Decades searching for the meaning of our mystical experience.
Questions answered,…..
After a 38-year corporate career, I’m beginning again. On a plane with Lorie to Paris to see our first grandchild, remembering being happily surprised last summer when Ali told us on our weekly Zoom call that she was pregnant. We had known something was different, Sam sitting next to her. He rarely participated in these calls.
We’ve only seen pictures so far. Ali and Sam wanted us to wait six weeks before coming, minimizing contact with the outside world, giving…..
I used to wear a hat all the time. Never went anywhere without one. The NY Mets cap was my favorite, always age appropriate. It’s the real deal, royal blue cloth with a blue button on top, a stitched orange NY emblem sewn in. Making appearances on the stickball field, aka church parking lot, and softball games, real softball fields – competing with my college roommate’s Yankees hat for top billing on the bunk bed post.
I wore it to…..
October 9, 2007. The Dow Jones reaches 14,164, an all-time high.
October 9, 2008. Midtown Manhattan
I’m sitting outside a restaurant with my daughter, “relaxing” in the warmth of a sunny afternoon, sharing an appetizer, drinks in hand. I’m in the city to facilitate a presentation my colleague Bob will make about the stock market. Ali’s a college sophomore and wants to spend a semester abroad in Israel. Not now. Surprise and disappointment line her face. Sorry, but the financial…..
